The Opening of the Way: A Practical Guide to the Wisdom Teachings of Ancient Egypt 0892910157

Citation preview

THE OPENING OF THE WAY A Practical Guide ‘To The Wisdom

Of Ancient Egypt

ISHA SCHWALLER DE LUBICZ The Author Of

HER-BAK

THE

OPENING

OF THE

WAY

THE OPENING

OF THE WAY

A Practical Guide to the Wisdom

of Ancient Egypt

by Isha Schwaller

de Lubicz

Translated from the French by Rupert Gleadow

iti Inner Traditions International New York

Inner Traditions International Ltd. 377 Park Avenue South New York, New York 10016

First published in French by Editions Aryana, Paris Copyright © 1979 by Editions Aryana Translation copyright © 1981 by Inner Traditions All rights form or recording in writing

reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher. Inquiries should be addressed to Inner Traditions.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Schwaller de Lubicz, Isha, 1885The opening of the way. Translation: of L'ouverture du chemin. Includes index. 1. Occult sciences. I. Title.

BF1999.5361613 299’.31 ISBN 0-89291-015-7

81-782 AACR2

Typography by Positive Type Printed in the United States of America

Contents Introduction PART ONE 1. Freedom of Individual Search 2. The Great Question 3. The Human Constitution 4. Soul and Consciousness 5. The Aim 6. The Duel PART TWO 7. The Way of the Heart 8. The Fountain 9. Knowledge 10. The Discernment of Discernment 11. The Milieu 12. The Visit to the Cave 13. The Sexual Problem 14. The Pendulum 15. Watchfulness and Mediation 16. Conduct PART THREE 17. The Seven Accomplishments 18. The Seven Obstacles PART FOUR 19. Reincarnation and Karma 20. The Masters 21. The Elite PART FIVE 22. Second Visit to the Cave

23. Peace 24. Joy 25. “Son of Man” and “Son of God’ 26. Signature Appendix I: The Functional Relationships of Bodily Organs Appendix II: Psychospiritual States in Different Traditions Index

189 199 205

1

=

Pa

2 7ae

= dE >

M

!

;

#1 10550 A .

.

u .

LE

%

è we Wyatt ae |

4 ae Z

Le

pt

y

“ Pa

149

‘4

Le enh,

€

a

Fer

|

bé:

a6PASS 4 DL 2

a

:

me

a

;

——

cher

wt

in

me

mi

a

|

>

À

Vinee

eh

a

#5

|

2

ty

a

jw

eho ST wa at

_

sé

|5

=

71

,

[

mn

i)-

do |

te A et conentnenl =

We

”

+ du

Lol

À

a

|

aie

Ms

a

| 2

of

towel

14 asad 7

ee 1 peeing org ¥y

9 nb ne Aste man ANT

SAT AU

2

sd

de

«

11

the.

tpl L

i

+‘ DS Li st AE Le ét

PERTE

de

-

ee

Nat

sil Le

(| perl oli La ss8 &+:

er

|

at

a

ri à

à

yy)

sue

awe,

cin je

a

8

2

Lego

,

(un

:

ne x vit.

i DOTE) VA Saye xr an wht

ET

fon.

. AT

a;

, LEe ape

*\

i]

*

4

|

den

cr

AS

>

LEE

ae

Sy



Ww ned

pi

CT.

her

is Gee bt i

me

Lt,

che

NME

> sci T inte? dt ni

ré

Li

was

AR

© cui MM

À Ml ear

ube

tae

TR

Aas JA dun sy .

Tee

wtbige per in

Ore NS

LAT à

ADS ER

we

dotée

14

À

orcsceter

Ye

Miri

Sat

hs

LP

Les

| ayul

MNT

hy

al ete

4 Serie

Cut

Cie

it kr Get

ee

a"

me

… hotel

Pa?

my eal

sa

di

Mevae

ae

26

ip ‘Me

fsa hrgtitène wits pellther ysispedaeee B

binaire

dry

wr oes es

Am

or

L.

Pass weds Rlege wer eaitdirptcace dls gies dan à

(use

rete

Wry

SA Soka rituel

FEC

Par

ta aig réa UT ES

age

|

”

et

D À

PART TWO

‘

a

The Way of the Heart

When considering the Duel we decided that the combatants were two aspects of oneself, the conscious ‘‘I’’ or Permanent Witness, and the automatic ‘‘I,’’ which refuses to be controlled. But the submission of the

conscious ‘‘I’’ to the fleeting suggestions of the ‘‘Will to the Light’’ soon awakens the Spritiual Witness, but we must learn to know the way leading to it. This Way we have called ‘‘the Way of the Heart’’ because upon it the Heart, in its physical and spiritual totality, is lord and master. This is the royal road because it gives all the power to the Spritual Witness of the king within, the divine Ka. It is the way of the ‘‘little children’’ to whom the Kingdom of Heaven is promised, because it is the simple way, without intellectual complications or artifical methods, which awakens our innate consciousness and enlarges it into a suprahuman consciousness by following obediently the suggestions of the heart. Yet this simplicity does not mean the end of the Duel, nor yet of the need for the awakening of the Permanent Witness. Even the last phase of our evolution on earth will not allow us to skip this stage, for it must be reached in order to realize the plenitude of human earthly experience, that being the aim of our incarnation. And the conditions of incarnation never put impassible obstacles in the way of that realization. The obstacles are to be used without rancor as providential opportunities to break our chains. We can, of course, endeavor to improve our conditions, and we shall succeed to the extent that our efforts are guided by our Will to the Light. Our Spiritual Witness cannot feel pity for the trials of our Personality; rather it will increase them, in order to hasten our deliverance—unless we

56

THE OPENING OF THE WAY

deliberately silence it, in which case it would leave us forever and we should lose our real immortality. On the other hand, when our ultimate goal is clearly seen and accepted, one is usually surprised to see the circumstances of life spontaneously alter as if to fit in with the new direction.

THE MIDDLE WAY The Way to be studied here is a middle way between the quest for human mastery on the part of the conscious ‘‘I’’ and the pure mystical way, which no longer concerns itself with this ‘‘I.’’ When a man has trained his ‘‘I,’’ or Permanent Witness, to control his Automaton, he may develop his physical, emotional, and intellectual consciousness so well that he acquires various powers in these three realms; but these, though useful in an earthly sense, are an obstacle to

spiritual realization, because they conduce to the exaltation of the personal Ego, which will take entire control if the Will to the Light is not developed at the same time; and then, should any feeling arise of desire for a higher kind of life, there will be no way of responding to this desire, and confusion will result. If, on the other hand, one plunges into a quest for mystical experience without the precaution of studying the Personal Self and controlling the Automaton, one will unwittingly become their slave and expose oneself to organic disorders as well as intellectual and emotional delusions. One will also be rejecting the highest experience that humanity can at present know, namely, complete knowledge of the self or microcosm, which by enlargement of consciousness leads to the suprahuman state. The aim of the middle way is first to awaken the conscious being which slumbers in the Automaton, and then to put into his hand the two keys of the kingdom, which are first the control of the three lower states, and then their use in the service of the Spiritual Self. Neither key should be used without the other, and in this the heart acts as mediator, since it is both

the regulator of the physical organism and the minister of the Spiritual Witness.

If one wishes the heart to predominate, one must know the strength and methods of its antagonist, and then instead of a duel there will be a competition between the powers of the heart and liver. For the heart does not fight; it gives suggestions and tries to establish peace and harmony, which the liver, with its will to exclusive control, resists.

As was said above, the character and functions of the liver are complex. It has three lobes with three different functions, and thus it forms with the

gallbladder a fourfold group of organs as important as the other fourfold group consisting of stomach, spleen, and pancreas together with the heart, which works with them in the distribution of energy.

THE WAY OF THE HEART

57

The left-side group can be called the cardiac group, and the right-side group the hepatic group, and their functions are parallel, thus holding them in balance against one another. The action of the liver on the blood corpuscles is paralleled by that of the spleen, and there is a parallel between the emotional characters of the two organs and the moral effects of their activity. The liver holds the seed of the Ego, with its innate characteristics inherited from the father. The spleen is the seat of the impulses and of the etheric body, inherited from the mother, and is the organ which responds to the Spiritual Witness. The liver, in spite of its Jupiterian amiability, produces the bile, which is bitter and separative. The moral effect of the activity of the bile is either courage and daring or else anger and aggression, according to whether it acts properly or defectively. In the same way the emotion derived from the spleen may be either exalting or depressing, according to whether it derives from a spiritual impulse or an organic deficiency. In both cases, therefore, there are two possible reactions, an automatic

reaction or a conscious reaction. With the liver the reaction is either instinctive, involving the brain and bile, or else a deliberate reaction of the

Permanent Witness. With the spleen there is either an instinctive reaction, violent, impulsive, and splenetic, or else a deliberate reaction by the Spiritual Witness. If the spleen is irritated by the bile-brain circuit, unpleasant emotion will result, which will react on the solar plexus, then return to the bile,

and so forth. In the cardiac group, the heart is never on the side of the Automaton. If the bile circuit has not been cut, the heart will be mechanically affected by disturbances, but it responds to the aggression of its enemies with nonresistance, merely restoring the balance and repairing the damage. It is just as if two kings were sharing the government of a kingdom, each discharging the functions for which he is fitted, but using their influence in exactly opposite ways. In the ‘‘hepatic government’’ the liver is chief minister for the Automaton and sometimes also for the Conscious Self, in which case it often becomes a battleground between the two. It also extends its rule over the two poles of the human body, the cerebral and the sexual. In the ‘‘cardiac government,’’

on the other hand, the heart is

never an instigator of trouble. Unlike its egocentric antagonist, it subserves the general harmony, being the minister of the spiritual heart, which is the seat of spiritual love.

THE POWER OF THE HEART Thus, even in its physical functions, the heart is genuinely the organ of peace. But, not being under the control of the Personal Will and the

58

THE OPENING OF THE WAY

intellectual faculties, its decisive role is commonly misunderstood and most people consider it only a machine, thus depriving it of its opportunities. Without knowing its extraordinary power one cannot give the heart the preponderant influence it should have. An experienced cardiologist writes: The kingdom of the heart, including its channels of distribution in the blood vessels, covers the full extent of any living being both in time and space. The heart is engaged in the mysterious work of holding the whole organism in balance, which is more than a matter of blood vessels and changing pressures. To correct the effects of injury or disequilibrium it hasremarkable methods of compensation justified by thousands ofyears of experience. This Wisdom of the Heart has come to us by heredity, as a quality of our species. The heart possesses an ability to repair damage affecting itself without for one moment interrupting the flow of energy it provides. Thus it is rightly a symbol of unfailing generosity. In the practice of cardiology we have had to recognize that the heart’s power to maintain life is almost unlimited, so long as it is allowed to use its own methods and has unrestricted access to its natural resources. [Here the author makes a reservation regarding “situations which are beyond mechanical control, such as a massive embolism of the pulmonary artery, when the heart fails because the task is practically impossible.] Only too frequently, however, the unfortunate interventions of the psyche, especially in the form of anxiety, turn the course of events into catastrophe. A strong heart, very little damaged, has often been known to fail in a few hours under the influence of acute anxiety. One emotional storm can demolish completely the marvelous structure of homoeostatic defenses which, with the Wisdom

of the Heart, has come

down to us from the depths of time.*

The experience of this tried cardiologist confirms our statement of the heart’s strength of reaction when attacked by illness, and also of its ability to repair vascular lesions, if a serene and confident disposition allows it to act unhindered. Further, being closely involved with the organs of its own region (the spleen, pancreas, and stomach), it can either compensate their functional disorders or else become the victim of them, according to one’s mental and emotional attitude. If one can achieve complete physical and moral relaxation, and perform one calming ‘‘mediation’’ on the region of the heart, then the heart will be able to exercise its curative power freely. But its power can be checkmated either by such drugs as prevent the organism from defending itself by its natural reactions, or equally by an anxious mental analysis of pathological symptoms. To practice the middle way it is indispensable to know the powers of the *Dr. Godel, L’Experience liberatrice (Paris: Gallimard, 1952), p. 124.

THE WAY OF THE HEART

39

heart, since its influence must predominate. This Way is a continual balance between the egoism of the Personal Self and the altruism of the Spiritual Self. Only the heart can achieve this wonderful act of balance, by its mediating position between the temporal and the extratemporal, between the mortal organism and its immortal archetype. Its alternating movement of dilation and contraction is a complete picture of this balance between the two powers, of which the personal must become conscious in order then to be transcended by the impersonal. We must therefore always remember these two objectives: First, by constant vigilance, we have to arouse our Personal Consciousness, in order that it in turn may enlighten our brainconsciousness regarding the origin of our impulses, in the realm of thought no less than of feeling. Second, and at the same time, we must become aware, through the practice of ‘‘mediation,’’ of the interplay of our organic functions, being careful however to avoid any medical or psychoanalytic pattern of thought. Yet as soon as the conscious ‘“‘I’’ is aroused, it must be put under control of the Spiritual Consciousness, and not allowed to use its power for selfish ends. Like a sporting dog, it must be trained to flush the game, but not to hunt for its own enjoyment. If the Ego is to make this sacrifice, it must be offered some compensation, and the compensation can only be a-satisfaction superior to its own little selfish satisfactions; it will in fact be the increasing Light which illumines each new step along the path. It will be the enthusiasm which comes with each awakening of true Knowledge; with the successive breaking of chain after chain until at last the Ego’s own shell is broken when the continuous presence of the Spirit has overcome its last resistance and drawn it into the Light. The quickest way of attaining this is the frequent practice of **mediation’’ on the heart.

MEDIATION OF THE HEART This consists of quietly concentrating attention on the heart and the region between the heart and solar plexus, which is the physical correspondence of the Spiritual Heart; for there is the true tabernacle of the Divine Presence whose temple is the human body. It should be the focus of our careful attention, in order that we may be able to hear the voice of our Spiritual Witness, and maintain the vital Fire. This feeling of the Presence will become a force helping us to overcome all sorts of obstacles, if we constantly intensify it by ‘‘mediation.”” This ‘‘mediation,’’ or meditation on the Spiritual Heart, should begin with an intense effort to identify one’s own heart with the Heart of the

60

THE OPENING OF THE WAY

Cosmos, which is our source of light and life, the focus and principle of all affinity. Next, one must let oneself be penetrated by the peacemaking power of one’s own physical and spiritual heart, and by confidence in it allow it to have its full effect. This is in no way a matter of autosuggestion or imagination, but rather of identification or direct communion with reality. Third, one must put aside all feelings of anxiety, rancor, and pessimism, which would prevent any such communion. This is essential because there can be no communion between rhythms or tendencies which are opposed to one another. The heart’s tendency is to make peace by establishing such a rhythm as will compensate any unbalance; and the cause of this tendency is the Spiritual Heart, of which the physical organ is the physical expression. Any disposition to obstruct this tendency is an obstruction to the appearance of the Presence, because

it creates discord instead of communion. So every time a feeling of aggressiveness or anxiety is overcome, the heart has won a useful victory over its opponents—useful because this is the way to the Light. Thanks to this practice the complications of daily life lose their importance, problems become simpler, and difficulties melt away in proportion as one becomes more able to know the real from the relative and discern the few things really necessary. This mediation on the heart is the keystone of the middle way, the only method that we can offer as genuinely effective, and not requiring, as other practices do, an instructor to make sure of its proper execution. Further, this middle way does not require any of the complicated exercises of Yoga, which are dangerous unless practiced under an experienced teacher. As for the methods designed to develop the supremacy of the Ego, to win power and assert the will, they are a great deal worse. On the Way of the Heart the first difficulty is the simplicity of the method,

for our modern

minds, being trained in complication,

cannot

believe that a simple method will be effective. For this reason many seekers prefer the doubtful procedures of more spectacular methods. But ‘‘simple’’ does not mean ‘‘easy,’’ even when, as here, it implies simple-heartedness and a simple technique. Simplicity of instruction is meant to keep the aim clear, to prevent unnecessary detours and involvements. Simplicity of thought is exclusion of the irrelevant. Simplicity of heart means detachment from that which is not essential to our aim, detachment from our previous intellectual riches, -prejudices, opinions, and beliefs, thus leaving us free to undertake the quest of Reality with the ingenuous open-heartedness of a child looking upon the world with new eyes.

THE WAY OF THE HEART

61

Why should this abnegation fill us with anxiety? The more the heart is an avid void, the more abundantly will the Light shine into it. And as for the scientific knowledge which we temporarily leave aside, its essential principles will only be made clearer by our greater discernment. But no one will oblige us to perform these acts of renunciation. There is no law, no commandement, no ‘*Thou shalt not.’’ The inner voice will suggest to us what sacrifices are necessary.

There can be nothing unspontaneous on this path. Only the limit of our desire will be the limit of our progress.

e let. A Fa ele SUR we ie Ber: D ent ao

i

Pal ‘er

oe

aE

: ‘0

se

Ant

pate

lb

pho? se

wedi

dr

in

ir

pe

EE

Se |

* ra = ARTE nr"

: JL We wei GR

i

nra ae Cyisiz“a

Val

À

AA" re rente Wa wie sai ape D ow Reel rem Lie ie.di ay

iw

49"

ap, ù

ni to

vor

L

» ah rl)

i

Cet were! 0

u

Ê

Los

are! sur

ony tee

_ 7

=

uv

a

he

ey.

x

dé

ART, dan,

“wri

gy

fist

LAN Sorry?

comgrenes ad Cr Piva RE Sree So tes eee Ni edi ee

”

2

.

haa

D

5 à tt

ee

og) PE

thet

des

\_oyaetp,

puéfler:> Gat

+

à

ee

ET

Is ee

Say

ados

9

0

ti

2

cost,

rye.

i: cb (ar ay

PT an Verte , i

POS

1%

pa:

see

SO Ge

ét

OT

Lg

a

4

aorkvyte Cet jeety ihe ererpelemione oF ei. Tie nm her trier.

gr

Oats

2,

on Une hate pte

‘a

Le

qi

LE

tec

f ma p0çtft

Ge

uk: cahés

ie és

.

:

Ma)

Poy

CNET

OR

maple «ÿ the Deo RD

ie

ior

(i,

oe

of we of

Es

nny. hr

am

a! Rte:

Pel

pese

ere

cg

ned inyok Ga th SDS

a + nr :

NEO eo s,s

TER:

dou tt

an et a Golam "à gael aay aR.

ex

teur

on

Fa

AA CT Ns OF

Oe

tm oven

"

combi ’

we,

~ ‘

eeOe

x

à

0 ar

in oem EST

vob D

ae

‘ Sng

vette .

|

pass

14 oat)

rs

:

,

vs

Le

La FI

Cincher’ . vi ao

SRE

CL

Ar

ae§SN

Et pan

ee

Der

bi a

et

se Se

sm oF té Lidoedy wind à US MONO

+

dee:+

id

Gee

fag wha Oh eget DELL

Pal

PCR

Oe nr

0)

mamie

steer) LE

inn eee aePA,

à paneer

end Lt yee

were

@ed-mé

ot

Seer

beg

UNS

we

a

ae

cu

Ke

ating,

car

CM

Las

| D D mnie ol Riga, ON ar Semen He

:

à + tdqu Ve wee: de tit nom oe E

di ex 108 Seng hie thes meld

nese! Last 86

rer LS

FA

:

8 The Fountain

There is only one fountain—the eternal Wisdom—and its messenger is the Spirit with its seven gifts. This is the rainbow bridge between heaven and earth, which reveals the seven colors of the one Light. Every man can receive this light, in the color that his own prism refracts. And there is only one Knowledge—the knowledge of the laws of genesis. This Knowledge can be understood under diverse forms and divided into different

branches:

the science

of numbers,

entities,

and

universal

functions; the science of phases, or transformations, in any kind of genesis; the science of natures, characters, and their signatures. Each of these branches can be the fountain of several human sciences, but all are

aspects of the one Knowledge, which is that of genesis. It is the foundation of the first book of Moses, as of all sacred books.

Mystical knowledge, or the science of the genesis of the mystic Egg, is no different; it is the knowledge of the becoming of the heavenly man within the earthly man, and of the regeneration of the earthly man by the heavenly man. We say knowledge rather than science because it is not indispensable to have studied its laws before attaining it in oneself; a sudden illumination may awaken the spiritual seed in one who is so disposed. And one who is absolutely docile to the guidance he receives can bring this seed to maturity in full consciousness, by a perpetual circuit of communion between the seed and its Cause. The foundation must not be sought in those complicated theologies which at a later time have been grafted onto originally genuine revelations.

64

THE OPENING OF THE WAY

The nearer the front, the briefer is the teaching of truth; which it is vitally necessary to know can be expressed in few Of essential truths there are more packed into the Book of in all the rest of the Old Testament. More splendid perhaps,

for the laws words. Genesis than because even

more condensed, is the Emerald Tablet of Hermes, which teaches in a few words the great unitary law of the identity of ‘‘that which is above’’ with ‘that which is below’’; and this is the whole teaching of Ancient Egypt. In the same way the first lines of the Gospel of John tell a man all that he needs to know to find his way. For when a man has recognized and proved upon himself that in the beginning of anything there is always the Word, that all things live by It, that Its life is Light, and that the gestation of this Light is in darkness, then he knows that his true aim is to awaken and bear this light in the darkness of his body, until its resurrection is complete. But to reveal Truth to another is a thing no one can pretend. One’s only instructor is oneself. A book or a Master may point out the predispositions necessary in order to find Truth; but to explain it is to kill understanding in advance. No Master worthy of the name can deceive himself by claiming to impose a new belief. All he can do is help seekers to understand the teaching of the sages, so far as they can at the present stage of their

awareness. No it has dulled We

new truths await discovery; everything has been given already. But all been scattered abroad and dispersed, misrepresented by analysis, by routine repetition. The essential words have been prostituted. must recover the vital meaning of these ideas.

5, Knowledge

Knowledge is not a science but a state—the state of identification. To be identified with something is to be united with it and made one with it. Identification can take place only between states of being of the same type, but these, like liquids of the same density, will interpenetrate naturally; thought communicates with thought, emotion with emotion,

and passion with passion of the same kind, and this individuals or groups, thought, emotion, and passion cated without words. No individual can communicate with another on which the latter does not possess. For example, a man

is why, between can be communia ‘“‘wavelength’’ cannot transmit a

moral, intellectual, or religious emotion to an animal, since the latter cannot vibrate, as it were, on that wavelength. A wild creature, when it

meets a traveler, knows by instinct whether his intentions toward it are friendly or aggressive, because it has such feelings itself; but it will pick up the emotional or passional condition of the man, not his thought or reasoning or plan of attack. The man, on the other hand, can use his reasoning power to guess at the intentions of the animal, but he will rarely understand its feelings because his own mental activity prevents him from communicating with it on that level. Knowledge is thus the state of identification with a condition or a function. Now, function is a particular modality of consciousness. Every species in Nature is characterized by certain functions and modalities which constitute its innate or instinctive consciousness. This instinctive consciousness is, for an animal, its ““knowledge,’’ that is to say, its state of being identified with the conditions and functions of its kind.

66

THE OPENING OF THE WAY

This direct knowledge is different from the intellectual apprenticeship of learned knowledge, which comes from the exercise of observation, memory,

deduction, and technique. The newborn kitten, though blind,

suckles by the light of Nature; it is identified with a function of its kind, and this it knows directly: but, later on, the place where the saucer of milk is put will have to be learned. The bounds of knowledge are much wider in man, because he possesses the elements, or at least the listening posts, of higher states than the physical, emotional, and mental. For these higher states are the projection in the human being of the same states of being in the Cosmos. Identification, however, is more difficult for man than for an animal,

because the egocentricity of his Personal Consciousness (the Permanent Witness) prevents him from wanting to be identified with anything but himself, and equally because the rational mind restricts the Automaton to the rational way of using the mind, and will not allow it to tune in to any mode of thought superior to its own. (For ‘‘mode of thought’’ we might say ‘“‘vibrations’’; all this is metaphor.) The identification most commonly in force is that of the Automaton with its lower states (the physical, emotional, and intellectual), while the Permanent Witness remains inactive except for a general urge toward anything that can inflate the Ego. When this happens, the impressions derived from each of the three lower states are vaguely felt by the other two, so that physical pains and other sensations become confused with emotions, and judgments or opinions are given under the influence of an exhilaration or depression which is of physical or emotional origin. This confusion controls the individual’s behavior. Neither of the two real forms of consciousness (the Personal or the Spiritual) can throw any light upon it because he would not hear them if they spoke, and he has no studied principle whereby to classify impressions according to their causes. Neither the Permanent nor the Spiritual Witness can interfere with this chaos of impressions because its principles (or its ‘‘wavelength’’) are different from theirs. They cannot, that is, except by provoking some violent shock which will surprise the Automaton into contact with one of the two witnesses before the rational mind has time to react. This contact gives the Automaton an impression of light and vital force, which, vitally, it will want to find again; and this is why a sudden moral or spiritual transformation sometimes occurs after a violent emotion, a serious illness,

or an escape from death. These shocks are a means frequently employed by one or the other witness-consciousness to shake the Automaton out of its lethargy and take the rational mind by surprise. One must not forget that this proceeding, by

KNOWLEDGE

67

the repetition of suitable shocks, can eventually keep the Automaton under the control of one of its witnesses. The choice between these, and

indeed the possibility of such a thing at all, are to be illustrated in the present work. Its object is to awaken man from his mortal slumber and put his Automaton into the service of the two witnesses in such manner and measure as shall be required for the attainment of ultimate deliverance. The result should be an acquisition of true knowledge, which will naturally be proportionate to the quality of the consciousness awakened and to the degree of identification. All functions and states of being can become objects of Knowledge. The innate human consciousness includes all the functional consciousnesses which are the framework of Nature; for, man being the microcosm of the macrocosm, all states of being in the Cosmos are projected in him. In other words, he has in himself all the possibilities of Knowledge, and it is in himself that he should look for them. Not even the best teacher can present one with consciousness, or fill one with knowledge; but in a man suitably disposed it is possible to arouse reactions which will lead in the right direction. Often it is useful to prepare the ground by clarifying essential ideas in order to get rid of prejudices. But the most effective instruction is that which leads the seeker to put his problems clearly to himself so that then he can find the answer for himself in meditation. Here we shall try to practice alternately the two methods, explanation and stimulation,

trusting

that the reader

will accept

our

meditative

reflections as the somewhat simple method, in fact the simplest possible method, of gradually approaching that simplicity of heart and mind to which the Kingdom of Heaven has been promised. Here there is no longer any author or reader; there is, or let us hope there is, only Consciousness. And the Consciousness of I and You is, let us hope, a little piece of the Universal Consciousness—unless indeed it is only an elucubration of my thinking brain, which pretends to be Myself. How can I tell? That which I think I know is that which my thought has recognized as evidential; but it has sometimes happened that certain evidence has been impugned by later scientific discovery. This ‘‘Myself’’ which thinks it understands is an activity of the brain. The Myself which thinks it wills may be the impulse of some urge of passion or of some unrecognized mental suggestion. And the Myself which thinks it loves has loved so many different things that I doubt whether it is always the same itself. ‘‘I’’ might doubt? Who then is this ‘‘I’’? Who asks this question? Who is speaking now? Is it that ‘‘I’’ have doubts about

THE OPENING OF THE WAY

68

‘*Myself,’’ or does ‘‘I’’ doubt ‘‘It’’? Is ‘‘I’’ ‘‘Myself’’? If it were, how could it be ignorant of ‘‘Myself’s’’ intentions? And if ‘‘Myself’’ were to die now, would ‘‘I’’ be still there asking, ‘‘Who am I?’’

Discussion cannot solve this problem. ‘‘I’’ accuses the incoherent ‘*Myself’’ of not revealing the motives of its behavior. Sometimes it thinks as ‘‘I’’ thinks, sometimes it does what ‘‘I’’ does not like, and its acts are

inconsistent, as if there were several ‘‘Me’s’’ acting at their own whims or under some outside influence. But to be able to take note of this seems to give ‘‘I’’ an advantage over the multifarious ‘‘Myself’’—the advantage that it can agree, or refuse, to be identified with the impulses arising in ‘‘Myself.’’ This means that it is a conscious being; and to be conscious of Self is to know oneself. Can the “T°? know itself? And if it is I who speak, who are you who listen? Are you your ““Myself’’? Or are you your ‘‘I’’?

Where will all this analysis lead me if I continue in this vein? Why, my personality will seem so rich and complex, my brain will be filled with a wealth of new notions and ‘‘Myself’’ will take the glory of it! I could, no doubt, take ‘‘Myself’’ by surprise, if I were to insist on analyzing out my physical mechanism, my emotional impulses, and the unresting whirlpool of my thoughts and imaginations. But what part does the ‘‘I’’ play in all this dissection? And

again,

if this

“‘I’’

were

a unit,

a consciousness

with

one

unalterable mode of expression, one would expect that all these analyses would in the end reveal its presence. But it does not take much experiment to convince one that there is a duality in one’s guiding impulses: some are pitilessly personal, and seem to intensify the individual’s egotism, and some show a spirit of altruism which will sacrifice the Self for a pure ideal. Is there any hope of discovering in oneself a factor of permanent stability, a ‘‘managing director’’ of one’s incarnation, aware of its goal and able to enlighten us concerning the route toward it? This brings us back to the threshold of our original anxiety; but regarding the object of our quest we have made a little progress: we have had a glimpse of the real meaning of consciousness, and of its immanence in all being. Animals are controlled by it, but man, when the automatic life does not satisfy him, wants something more. His legitimate pride, as a candidate for higher realms, seeks instinctively for some élement of certainty in himself which could put an end to the duel between his two contradictory tendencies. This, alas, is a hopeless dream in the duality of

KNOWLEDGE

69

the natural world. Yet that which is impossible to the ‘‘natural’’ man is possible to one who has awakened in himself the Spiritual Witness. For although its presence does not exclude that of the Permanent Witness, it is the means of further evolution for the latter, and, where it predominates, the suprahuman state can be attained; and one may then speak of a single consciousness, permanent and immortal, in which the struggle is no longer discord but simply experience seeking through choice an increase of Knowledge. Until that is attained, we have to admit our duality, and not stifle our anxiety by a cowardly acceptance of our own automatism. After all, the cause of our anxiety is ignorance, and the incoherence of the guidance we can give ourselves. And no theorizing will solve the difficulty. So, following faithfully the course mapped out, we must eliminate all complexity, fix our attention on the heart of the problem, and rediscover the simplicity of a child.

Let us try for a few moments to establish some sort of mediation between “‘I,’’ ‘‘You,’’ and ‘‘the Others.’ Whoever is speaking or listening, “‘I’’ is to be the one who speaks, ‘“You’’ is to be the one who listens. Let us make no further distinctions, and try to establish a means of mediation. When a child suckles, the milk is the mediation. Between heaven which

gives, and the flower which receives, light is the mediation. The mystery is the assimilation of that which is received and absorbed. But the child does not think of the mystery, it simply sucks, and the flower does not think of the mystery, it simply opens, at whatever time it can receive what it requires. This is Wisdom—wisdom which knows the necessary gesture to perform the necessary function at the necessary moment. If there is no opposition or dissociation, then gesture, function, and wisdom are one in giver and receiver. A child has this innate Knowledge so long as it has not left the Kingdom of Heaven. An infant is not in hope of the Kingdom of Heaven; so long as it has not quitted the state of innocence, which is nondifferentiation, it is in the Kingdom of Heaven. On quitting it, it will painfully have to learn discrimination, what to do and what not to do, in fact the hard task of the man with two wills who cannot distinguish between the voices of the two witnesses when they whisper to him contradictory advice. But later, of course, things will be simpler; Permanent Witness will be the only one he listens to.

the

But You and I know this drama, and are tired of submitting blindly. So let us try now to discover consciously the key of the kingdom that we have

70

THE OPENING OF THE WAY

lost. Let us try to listen, as a child listens, to that vibration in the depths of one’s breast which corresponds to the conception of a reality. Let us try, as a child tries, until ‘‘it happens.’’ To try is in itself to free oneself from the habit-bound will, and to enlarge the scope of one’s intuitive powers. Listen then, listen unremittingly. Watch the flower open just when it needs the sun. Watch its desire. Watch that in yourself which seeks, in order to discover who the seeker is, and what you seek. Watch the invisible, and slowly your interior vision will open, just as your eyes accustom themselves to see in darkness. Our principal resistance is fear of being deceived, of escaping from the control of our intellectual faculties. But one can reply to this that sense-perception and false reasoning can also cause delusions. That, however, is part of the world you know, and its verification must be studied elsewhere. For the present we want to set ajar a door into a world which you did not know existed within yourself. It has, sometimes, swung open a little without your knowledge, but that has been more shocking than to open it deliberately. Knowledge is not to learn and file somewhere in the brain notions which will vanish when the brain cells die. Knowledge is to open one’s eyes to the nature of a thing as if one were born into it, so that this perception awakens awareness of that in ourselves which is analogous to it. If Iput myself in a state of complete mental and physical relaxation, if I do not attempt to believe or profess to know, then I can hear in myself the overtones of that which I wish to know, just as a harp sounds all the overtones of the note one touches. Experience has shown that the doctor who in imagination can identify himself with his patient will prescribe an effective treatment, just as the mountaineer, the explorer, and the lion tamer can avoid the dangers which they have felt approaching and have been experiencing in imagination. But, to reach this condition consciously, one must deliberately abandon the fruitless discussions caused by a variety of doctrines and opinions ;one must renounce controversy and quarreling, and march by the single star that hangs over the cradle of the child. And this is your own star, that of the child which slumbers in you, awaiting its awakening. To discover the straight course which is your own and not another’s, you must set out simple in mind, the head and memory empty, and the heart on fire with longing to open yourself unconstrainedly; and the eyes as easily astonished as those of an ignorant child, for whom the world is new. As a child, you were carried away by thrills of emotion, by delight in the marvelous. You did not dissect the world like a dead body, or

KNOWLEDGE

71

anesthetize your perception in little watertight compartments of materialism and spiritualism and monism. You submitted to the charm of legends and mysteries, and were happy, in being small, to admire powers greater than yourself. What have you gained by all this suspicious skepticism? Are you so great that the idea of the suprahuman seems impossible? Or are you so ashamed of your mediocrity that the notion of suprahumanity offends you? Enough of these tergiversations! If you are satisfied with life, ask nothing more. But if you seek the Light, let us set off together as pilgrims through the light and shade of mystery.

What is the ‘‘mystery’’? Have you looked for it in yourself? Stand before a mirror, and unveil,-if you can, the mystery of your image. Who is that looking at you? Is it yourself? Yourself, looking at your self? No, it is the reflection, and reflections are an effect of light and shadow on something which reflects the light projected on it, or rather, which projects itself by stopping the light. And what are you yourself? Light? Shadow? Or thing? Of what light are you the shadow? Of what forces are you the form? Of what are you the projection? Observe your reflection, and the contour of your body, which apparently delimits your life. That, the body, is the thing for which you do everything; for it you will your daily life, for it you work, for it you love, for it you fear, and you struggle to preserve its physical life, to satisfy its senses, tastes, and appetites. Look at it. Has it ever told you who it is? Or what it will give you for all your trouble? Ask it! Try to extort their secret from those eyes which express so little of the struggle of a soul which is your own! Discover their meaning, if you can. ‘*Who are you, my body, you have a little world at your service all through life? Whence comes thy form, O Form? Answer me! You are me, you must know me! And me, who am I? Myself, or You? It’s hopeless! If you shut those eyes of mine, I can still see you, within myself; but you, the reflection, cannot be aware of me. So there is a Myself, which knows, and a reflection?”? Listen now. In your breast there is something moving. Its impulses control the flow of your blood, which it receives back and sends out

without rest or pause, and it has been beating since it existed; but it has been beating without your knowledge. It beats every second of your existence, but what knowledge of it have you? Try to stop it. You cannot, your will knows nothing of it. Only your emotion can quicken it.

re

THE OPENING OF THE WAY

What! An immaterial impulse act on a physical object? Let the intellect explain that! Uncontrolled by you, that heart of yours beats out the tempo of your life, and, be it fast or slow, what can you do about it? That is the tempo of your life, your rhythm, your own; everyone has his own. What cosmic rhythm has regulated this pendulum? Do you not know, O most intelligent man? Who obliged you to be the plaything of this mystery? Perhaps, then, you can understand how your food becomes transformed into your own substance, yours and not that of an animal? Or how matter, chemically transformed by your digestion, can be finally transmuted into a living personified substance, in fact animated by the same energy as your body? It is no use to reply in chemical terms, for science must stop here; in the ultimate analysis it can only note that the transmutation occurs, without explaining the last phase of it. Neither can it explain how the minute quantity of nutritious matter which the body does not eliminate is sufficient to maintain it. In a child this is even more striking; so great is the disproportion that its growth evidently cannot be explained except by the reception of some external but nonmaterial substance which encourages the multiplication of cells and blood corpuscles. This growth is a real mystery, of which the biological explanation is inadequate. But what is a mystery? We might say that a mystery is the manifestation of a oi law which cannot be penetrated by our sensory or rational faculties. But this definition does not suggest the feeling of sanctity in a mystery. To understand that there are mysteries in the sacred sense of the word, one must realize that we live in a world of appearances, and that in this world, as in a mirror, the image is a reversed reflection of reality. The image belongs to the world of form, through which we move with our bodies, thoughts, and senses. Reality is the world of the movements of

the Spirit, and we live in that too, but without knowing it. The art of painting, as taught in China, begins with this axiom: ‘‘The movement of life is created by the revolutions of the Spirit. If this principle has not been yours from birth, you cannot hope to learn it.’’ This may seem harsh, but no more so than St. Paul maintaining that ‘“Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many’’ (Hebrews 9:28). Or the Gospels: ‘‘The Son of Man came to give his life a ransom for many”? (Mark 10:45). And further: ‘‘This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many’’ (Mark 14:24). And the Christ says: ‘‘I pray for them; I pray not for the world’’ (John 17:9).

KNOWLEDGE

13

And again: ‘‘Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the Kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables: that seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them’’ (Mark 4:11-12). In clearer and more modern language we might say: If the Mystery can only be perceived by the elect, that is to say, by individuals who have had from birth the faculty of perceiving ‘‘the revolutions of the Spirit which create the movement of life,’ how can you expect it to be understood by the crowd, and especially by people who are too intelligent to accept any perception other than from their material senses and their reason? Must we conclude that the perception of the world of Causes is forever

closed to humanity? By merely human means, it is. But all the true initiators have come to earth expressly to indicate the suprahuman means. And whether the World of Causes be called ‘“Tao’’ or ‘‘The Kingdom of Heaven,” the essential means for attaining it is the same: simplicity of heart and mind.

el

dE ui Poy

ANT

ey

ig

=

LES =.

10 The Discernment of Discernment The word ‘‘discernment’’ will be used here to signify the power to discriminate between a perceived reality and the possibility that the perception may be illusory. Discernment is not the same as faith, for faith may be a personal creation, either mental or emotional, but discernment is a quite certain recognition of the reality or truth of something, and is acquired by the higher consciousness. Every certainty is the result of an experience. If the experience has come through the senses, the emotions, or the intellect, then the certainty is no more than relative; it is beyond doubt only when it is the fruit of a genuine spiritual experience of identificaton. Identification is the union of a part of one’s being with the object contemplated, whether or not this object is in the field of sensory perception. True identification is communion between the perceiver and the perceived, and this communion does not permit the intrusion of any notions foreign to the reality of the object contemplated. It demands accordingly the exclusion of all notions or impressions arising from the personality of the perceiver, for these might corrupt the integrity of his perception; that is, it requires absolute neutrality, whether this is obtained accidentally for a moment or by perfect control. Perfect control of our mental faculties, by holding them steady and reducing them to the role of an absolutely neutral observer, makes identification possible, and conscious identification obtained in these conditions amounts to certain knowledge.* *No other form of “knowledge” is anything more than inference. (Trans. note)

76

THE OPENING OF THE WAY

Identification can also happen accidentally through momentary emptiness of the mind; but in that case it is without the conscious control which

coordinates spiritual perceptions, and is thus an unconscious identification. Most intuitive perceptions are of this order and cannot have the value of certainties for lack of the necessary ‘‘discernment’’; they remain probabilities which must be evaluated more and more closely by a process of verfication strictly purified from personal prejudice. The possibility of distinguishing without error between the certainty and the mere probability of an experience of identification may be called ‘‘the discernment of discernment.’’ The value of a flash of discernment cannot be measured in time; it is a moment of wisdom, of true knowledge. A sage may enjoy such moments more or less frequently, but they are never continuous so long as he is obliged to undergo the accidents and relativism of life on earth. The discernment of a true discernment requires in the man who would practice it an experimental knowledge of his own different states of consciousness and of the value of the evidence they offer him. Only in such a case can our discernment have the value of reality, and thus allow us to find our answers in ourselves.

11 The Milieu

For the genesis of anything, the first necessity is the formation of a proper milieu. This is brought about by spiritual influence. For if you have not in yourself the Will to the Light, you are like a magnet which has lost its magnetism, or a bird which has lost its wings, unable to move and obliged to submit passively to the laws of its environment. If you desire liberation, you must become your own ‘‘milieu’’ and bring forth your own Light, completing your cycle in yourself. But this cycle must genuinely correspond to your original destiny. If you wish to bring forth the divine Light of Wisdom, do not provide for it the unstable milieu of your maladjusted personality. And beware what powers you attract by your desires and prayers! How few are those who can draw down the divine Power directly and simply, without formulas and names, ‘‘in Spirit and in Truth.’’ They are the true ‘‘poor in spirit,” who desire ‘‘in Truth,’’ and theirs in the only desire that deserves to be so called, for it yearns only for That, lives for That, unites itself to That, just as a flower drinks its life from the light; for this Desire is in them a vital necessity, and the necessity is that of their own divine spark demanding its sustenance. For such, the Kingdom of Heaven is indeed within them because they are in it; for that which is not separated is one, and this Desire is nonseparation. The obstructions to this Desire are-all those things that men call desires. The desires of the earthly are attached to all that is not That, because That—the Spirit— seems to them the Void; and men fear the Void. So, to escape it, they listen to all their desires, and these desires are not the

78

THE OPENING OF THE WAY

Desire, but either wishes (which are mental) or else affinities created by the need for finding one’s complement. Thus is Nature’s work continued; and this is the Kingdom of Earth. Many are those who project their imaginings outside themselves and create gods ‘‘in their own image and likeness.’ The powers they would adore are those that can grant them all the boons they yearn for in this world and the next. They are answered by Christ’s word: ‘‘Ye know not what ye ask’’ (Mark 10:38). Their wish is for an idol to protect and favor them, or else for a divine being who can be loved possessively. But paradises, like gods, are made by men according to their desires, and their misfortune will be that they will often find what they have imagined. But what we can imagine is no part of the inexpressible Divine. An omnipotent desire is one which animates the very cells of your being and makes you able to seize and grasp the object of your affinity. Such a desire has magic power, and, like the sorcerer’s apprentice, man uses it imprudently. For the god, or power, which answers him is of the same nature as his desire. The money-grubber invokes the powers of money, the social climber the powers of the social order, and the thinker invokes intellectual powers. Thus the seeker is ruled and restricted by his affinity. This is his hell, or purgatory, in which he is already confined in this present life. As for so-called ‘‘spiritual desires,’’ the potency of ‘‘the Desire’’ must not be confused with these anemic wishes for spirituality, or emotional longings toward some God or other who is expected to reciprocate, ta show good intentions, and to provide all the scenic effects which lull the pious into an illusion of beatitude. What do I gain if I deceive myself? Only my mortal being can be deceived. When the illusory vanishes, reality appears. The necessary experience is to recognize the real in the midst of the world of illusion. To do this I must clear my own ground, eliminate all that is not my true self, and create in myself the milieu which can attract the Spirit. Only the immortal Self can eliminate personal desires and so serve the one true Desire, Desire for the Eternal. And then the Permanent

Witness

will

submit without reserve to the supremacy of the Spiritual Witness. The Milieu is that wherein the complementary opposites meet are adjusted together. The Means is that which brings them together. And this Means, this possibility of concord, is the knowledge of how to create a harmonious milieu.

THE MILIEU

79

Every milieu that is pure, and ripe to receive seed, will easily bear the fruit of its own king. Purity, however, does not consist in the absence of dirt, physical or moral, as the world erroneously thinks. The purity of a thing is its homogeneousness, in accordance with its own particular type. A man is perfectly pure at whatever moment he is totally identified with the cosmic character of his Being. A scorpion too can be perfectly pure, and is so, insofar as it is perfectly true to its nature. Any concession that weakens the essential rhythm of a being puts it into a heterogeneous and therefore impure condition. For, as Hippocrates said, ‘‘the homogeneous will join with the homogeneous, but the heterogeneous fights, resists, and separates.’’ Thus any mixture of blood, or of divergent tendencies, creates a battlefield. And equally, the forced-creation of a milieu for some arbitrary ideal, or for qualities foreign to its nature, can only give birth to monsters and be a source of needless strife. If the fruit is to be sound, the milieu must be in harmony with the nature of the seed. | Thus, for the creation of such a milieu in oneself, the first requisite is a knowledge of all the deepest tendencies of one’s real being. The second condition is to awaken and reeducate the inner perceptions. The third is to cultivate and intensify the Will to the Light.

SEEKING OUT TENDENCIES If in the revealing light of some moment of cataclysm you were to meet your double, not dressed in its worldly glad-rags, not armed with that buckler of excuses which conventional hypocrisy uses to cover our secret wishes, but in all its moral nakedness, showing its tendencies and urges,

its pitiless cunning and its cowardice, are you certain that you would recognize it? How many sages are there on this earth who could and calmly would call by their real names the secret motives of their actions? That, nevertheless, would be the greatest victory a man could gain over himself, and the first proof of his mastery—a clear vision of all the tendencies which rule his inner being. If you want to enjoy the sympathy of the crowd, if you want normal people to make excuses for you, do not enter the maze to which this fearless search will lead you. Remain in the disguising shade, where reassuring mediocrity comes down and veils any truth that should threaten to show its face and, to discourage inquiries, covers it with a well-known label. For quite possibly the unveiling of your secret world might ruffle your calm acceptance of the opinions, values, and prejudices which rule your ordinary life.

80

THE OPENING OF THE WAY

But if your aim is to attain Masterhood and Knowledge, then illuminate one day of your life with the cold light of impersonal judgment; observe the finer points of all your impulses, excavate without pity and without excuses, until you lay bare their roots and origins. You will be surprised, at times, to recognize the signature of your ancestors in certain atavistic ways of behavior, learned or inherited from your family. Other impulses, to which you have given moral value without examining their right to it, will be shown up as mere habitual reflexes of mind or emotion, impressed upon you either by education or by the daily suggestion of your religious and social circumstances. Both these classes of impulse are foreign to you, and prevent your true nature from manifesting itself. A third class is your own; observe it therefore, but do not judge it! It consists of passionate impulses, marks of your deepest nature, which can reveal to you by their analogies with the same forces in Nature (in planets, animals, plants, and metals) the characteristics of your true Being, and help you to identify yourself with it. Let us make a beginning together on this introspection. The atavistic tendencies which are the signature of a family or a race are the rhythm or type imprinted by contagion, and as it were by a sort of imitation, on all the cells of the body and all the corpuscles of the blood; and the blood, as vehicle of this animal soul, transfuses its characteristics and superficial tendencies from generation to generation until they are effaced by new impressions. This effect will be the deeper, the narrower is the circle in which the family or race is living. The conformations of family character, though they may be brought out or hidden by relationships with the world outside, have been ingrained by successive generations and cannot be removed except by length of time or violent rupture. Emigrants, transplanted into a race and traditions radically different from their own, often show greater flexibility of habit and judgment, and are often readier for the acceptance of new ideas. One who looks indulgently on the violent temper he has inherited, or smiles to recognize in his mirror some gesture familiar in his grandfather or father, should rather try to break these chains of servitude, and give attention to the grand object of his journey. For the great mass of humans, family, country, and religious denomination are an indispensable refuge. But for those who desire to take the narrow way and attain the highest of human possibilities, the Gospel has shown the unconditional requirement: “‘If any man hate not his father and mother and wife and children, he cannot be my disciple’’ (Luke 14:26).

The word ‘‘hate’’ does not mean, in the Gospel of Love, that fury which poisons modern society, but rather the exclusiveness which gives

THE MILIEU

81

precedence to the conquest of Reality, over against all other social duties and relationships. Here again the choice should be made wholeheartedly. If you are still attached to the fetters of memory, if you are still controlled by the instinct for continuation on earth, then you had better submissively accept the duties of your chosen world, support its customs and traditions even to excess, and observe them so intensely and so consciously that, by contrast, your “‘sense of eternity’’ will be awakened and will summon you to the more sacred duty of the individual quest. But if this longing for Reality predominates already in you, then follow the commandments of liberaton; let go of all that the past has written in your substance: seek your true Name; set yourself apart from the group-soul of any group; and learn that you can serve your fellow-travelers more effectively by becoming, yourself, a sun that shines with its own light rather than by helping them to drag the old chains of slavery. The same applies to the tendencies engraved upon your cells by the education you were obliged to undergo. Since your life began, all your intellectual reflexes, all your manner of judging things, and of expressing your feelings, were carved and molded by the wills of others, and inhibited the development of your individual consciousness. Now you can free it from this dead weight, knock down the wall of prohibitions and prejudices which prevented you from making your own discoveries. What do you know of Good and Evil? Their relative value varies from one race or climate to another;

and

their absolute value you can only learn by identifying yourself with the Source of all things. But in order to do this you must let go of all preconceived opinions, all judgments dictated by convenience, all the conventions necessary to social life. Many so-called sins will hardly weigh as such in the cosmic balance; but many acts ostensibly innocent will lay upon you a heavy burden of karma. Granted that you incur a debt toward anyone whom you injure by the refusal to discharge an acknowledged duty; granted that you are responsible when you break the laws of the social order; granted too that you have duties to your family, but only to the extent that you have freely accepted them—and for this reason the obligations of marriage and parenthood are more binding than those of filial or fraternal duties. But a duty in the general interest will always be more important than others, and the first of all these is the duty to make spiritual growth; for one wise action by a man of insight’can do more for humanity than a whole life of conventional virtue. Whoever gives his free consent to being a member of a group is bound thereby to accept its earthly rules and sanctions. But no group, not even a

82

THE OPENING OF THE WAY

religious group, can have a right to thwart the evolution of an individual either by overruling his conscience or by professing to substitute for the judgment of his own true Destiny its own allegedly ‘“‘eternal”? condemnation, or by granting a pardon which in the absence of true contrition is ineffective. For the attainment of the suprahuman realm there are certain inexorable requirements, and there can be no excuses, no sentimental concessions to the relative values of the merely human world. For, as the

Christ said: ‘‘I pray not for the world’’ (John 17:9). Thus duty can take strange forms when its motive is the sublime quest for the Light—for example, the obligation on certain Chinese dynasties to destroy the works of their predecessors in order to rebuild in a new spirit. So too certain revolutionary schools of art, and the destructive tendencies of such notions as ‘‘permanent revolution,’’ ill-expressed today by social theories based on perverted intuitions. All these bear witness to that urge we have to destroy impermanent values and in the shock of the void to discover the true Light. It is of course unwise to trust the unawakened with means of destruction which only the sage should wield. Yet no one of the elect will find his “*kingdom’’ except by the pitiless destruction of everything which is not a part of the indestructible life of his own being. And this can only be the Consciousness developed in him by the experience of life. Blind obedience is for the herd, and mediocrity is its refuge. A boldness that accepts its responsibility is the virtue of the conqueror who would find the keys of his kingdom. Happy is he who dares to destroy the phantoms of his past in order to find his own eternal likeness. Thrice happy he who is in love with the void, who fears not to plunge into the abyss where creative Faith can lose nothing but its shadow, and the Living Soul nothing but its dead ghost. You who do not wish to die with your body, cut out and cast in the fire, from among your habits and ideas, all that can be destroyed. The indestructible will reveal itself of itself. Your deep, your passionate tendencies, are tyrannical forces linked to your destiny just as the need to sing is linked to the throat of a nightingale. Your needs are elementary forces born of the necessity for a physical organ to discharge its function. The stomach lives to eat, and to do this it forms juices which attack its food; but if food fails, these acids attack its own substance, and it creates a

feeling of pain, which is a cry for help. The pain becomes tyrannical necessity, and obliges the animal to kill in order From bacteria (the most primitive form of stomach) up animal, this urge expresses itself more and more perfectly;

a sensation of to satisfy it. to the human but whether it

THE MILIEU

teaches ambush to the spider, cunning

83

to the fox, or violence to the

carnivore, it is still the same obedience to an elementary need. In an organic being each vital function is the expression of a corresponding need; but the different needs express themselves with different rhythms, in a subtle or gross manner, according to the stage of evolution of the individual and the species. In the lion voracity is held back for a few moments by pride of conquest, and in the cat by its love of play. Where delicacy of perception goes hand in hand with the development of consciousness, its modes of expression can be distinguished by the seven qualities which are the signatures of the seven planets; and these seven modes are themselves derived from combinations of the four fundamental qualities, Hot, Cold, Moist, and Dry. The ‘‘humors’’ of the animal body (blood, lymph, bile, and atrabile)

are the materialization of these qualities, and their proportion determines the physical temperament of each individual; that is, it controls the expression of his instincts, and influences his psychological reactions: The bilious type is choleric; the lymphatic, lazy; the sanguine, eager; and the atrabilious, anxious. But these temperaments only modify, by their color and intensity, the passions proper to all animal life. Obviously, therefore, passional tendencies, being elementary forces of Nature, cannot be suppressed by an act of will. Even the most skillful engineer cannot prevent an underground stream from flowing; he can seal up the spring, but this will only divert its course, and it will reach the surface again through the first fissure that it finds. Passion must be classed with the instincts, but Consciousness can make

use of it as an instrument in the struggle toward the Light.

12 The Visit to the Cave

There was a man who had all that learning, love, and wealth can give, and yet a gnawing anxiety troubled his unsatisfied heart. He sought relief in travel, but seemed only to be making circles around his anxiety, and every stage led back to his unhappy starting point. He climbed mountain peaks, but found only danger in them and no escape. He cried, as he crossed the snowy wastes and found them void of life: ‘‘Where is the Spirit??? He crossed the seas, and watched the ocean spend itself on the shore, but nothing revealed to him the mystery of its flowing. The starry heaven of the Chaldean Magi threw him into a paroxysm of despairing calculations. The sands of the desert aggravated his fever, for he had not understood their voice and could not bear their silence. At length he returned to his own country, as unsatisfied as he had set out.

One spring night he was wandering aimlessly in an old oak wood, and as he stood, weary of everything, dreaming beside a broken tree trunk, he remembered a deep cave where dwelt a wise old hermit. He found it, all gray with smoke, and entering, saw an old man who bade him sit down in front of a fire of dry wood. He said to the old man:

‘‘I have been all over the world, but I have not

found ‘the answer.’ ”? ‘*What are you seeking?’’ a Eeuthec ‘“Can you not read??? ‘I have studied all the philosophies.”’

86

THE OPENING OF THE WAY

‘What have books to do with Truth??? ‘What else is there to read?’ ‘‘Are you blind?’’ asked the hermit. ‘‘If you cannot read the truth which is Nature’s signature in heaven and earth and in your body, how can you expect to discover her secrets in the writings of men??? ‘*What is Truth?’’ said the man. “That which is.”’ ‘*How can a man know that??? ‘By knowing Nature and himself.’’ ‘I know myself very well.’’ ‘*What do you know of yourself?’’ ‘*T know my vices and virtues, my likes and dislikes, my will.” ‘*Ts all that yourself? You mistake the crowd for the individual.’’ ‘Then who am I?”’ ‘*No one can tell you, except your own conscience. When you explored the outside of the earth, you found nothing. Try exploring the inside of your world. You will be surprised.’’ “T do not know how. Will you guide me?’’ **All I can do,’’ replied the sage, ‘‘is to blow away the clouds, and that only if you will it in very truth.’ The hermit came and sat opposite the seeker. After a silence he said: “*Reflect yourself.’’ The man gazed into the hermit’s eyes and observed his image. He said to the sage: ‘‘I see the Other. He is examining your thoughts intently, drawing up a list of clever questions to discover your secrets... . No, that is not I! That is not what I want.’’

‘‘How do you know? Still, never mind, continue looking. What is he doing now?”’ ‘Magic formulas! He is invoking power, he wants to control men, to compel love, he is forging his will like steel to avenge an injury. It is terrible, he wants to...’’

‘Let him! His will will come back on his own head.’’ **Stop him!’’ cried the man. ‘‘He will go mad!”’ “I cannot. Only you can renounce these accursed ‘powers.’ Do you truly want to?’’ **T renounce them.”’ The hermit effaced the vision with a gesture. ““If I can efface it,” he said, ‘‘that means it is not yourself. Now search in yourself.’’ And he placed his fingers on the man’s temples. ‘‘Here is myself. . .my thoughts.”’ ““Indeed?’’ The hermit smiled. The man pondered for a moment, his eyes closed. ‘“*No,’’ he concluded, ‘‘I was wrong, they are just a crowd, a mad

THE VISIT TO THE CAVE

87

fandango of confused ideas, one following another wildly. When one melts away others come along, one suggests another, they get transposed, multiplied, divided. I cannot follow it, it is a mad rush!’’ Irritated, the seeker became involved in the game; he saw himself face

to face with confusion and trying vainly to stop its course. Ideas came and went in every direction, beliefs struggled together, doubts tugged at him, every sort of opinion charged at him, all trying to overwhelm him. He struggled, tried to fight a way through, pushed them away in the hope of casting a look behind, but others still rushed in. “*Stop!’’ he cried. ‘“This is sheer confusion!”’ The hermit made a gesture, and the movements became slower, and as

in a slow-motion film details were seen which before had passed unnoticed. The intricate complications became clearer, and revealed the chain of their causation. The seeker was astounded. All his intelligent ideas seemed to go strangely lame. What he had called ‘‘logical’’ was suddenly demolished by an unforeseen consequence. He saw what knotted strings led up to an act he had thought spontaneous. He could follow his thoughts right back to their origins, and was astonished at their diversity. What? All these inspirations, which he had thought his own, came to him from without? His professional achievement showed as a compact group of extraneous notions. His most superb idea had come from a rival! Others, in long entwining chains, had come from his family tradition. But most had been snatched in passing from a thousand other influences, and arduously worked in with oddments of reading and his personal studies. How could he claim to be the father of all that? ‘*How long will this horrible dance continue?’’ he exclaimed. **Until death of your brain.’ ‘*What will remain after that?’’ ‘*Vague floating forms such as you see, without aim or order.’’ ‘*What will become of those forms??? ‘*They will become the property of other brains, which they will touch unnoticed.”’ ‘*But what shall I get out of it all??? ‘Nothing, because your instrument will no longer exist.’’ “I am not missing much, am I?’’ he sighed. ‘‘So little of that was myself! But then where is my Self?’’ ‘*You must continue the search.”? The hermit touched the man’s solar plexus. He shivered, and waves of emotion swept over him like a rising tide. Hope, love, and malice flowed over him, just as he had known them not long since, and he trembled. ‘*T know all these,’’ he cried. ‘‘Why do you bring them back??? But eagerly he lived them over again, trying in vain to catch the ideas

88

THE OPENING OF THE WAY

he loved and push away the sufferings which were too intense. Wearily he tried to expunge them, but they only changed, and were replaced by older ones; like a film shown backward,

memories flooded up, reversing the

course of time. He watched them uncomprehending. At the passionate adventures in which his reflection was involved he now felt no emotion;

quite undisturbed he watched it sinking into despair or rising to paroxysms of joy; at the most, an indulgent smile for one or two excesses. He was amazed at the waves of bliss which had filled certain scenes, and rejected the storms of anger which no longer seemed to have any meaning. And where was he himself, the Self of today, in this long story about the past? That in him which could still respond to those echoes had now such different vibrations! Were there, in all these waves of movement, just a few which composed his own true harmony? If so, how could he recognize them? The hermit, answering his secret thought, said: ‘‘To know that, you

must explore even deeper.’’ And he placed his hand on the back of the seeker’s neck. For a moment the man was silent, then a violent shudder went through him, and the blood reddened his face. Revolted, he exclaimed: ‘‘What have I to do with these horrors? I have

rejected all these obsessions! They do not concern me!’’ ‘If you have been liberated from them, why do they trouble you?’’ The man trembled, trying in vain to escape from what had been evoked; but gradually and in spite of himself, panting and sweating, he succumbed to its grip. Burning images flowed over him, sensual folly played with temptations and tortuous perversions, while possessive rage confounded vivid eroticism with surly sadism. This was the witches’ sabbath of his © dreams. The hermit let the storm die down, and the man asked brokenly: ‘‘I came in search of peace. Why have you aroused my demons?’’ ‘You came in search of Truth. Peace is its fruit. We must first reactivate your deepest roots.’’ ‘‘Are they buried in that crowd?”’ ‘Vice comes from a deviation of the natural tendencies of your being. It works out as opposition to your true destiny.”’ ‘Must one allow these oppositions to grow strong?’’ ‘‘It is indispensable for the enlargement of consciousness that you recognize them as such.’’ ‘Is consciousness found in the dunghill?’’ the man asked with a sour smile. ‘That is truer than you think! Contradictory forces show their true nature when they come into conflict. The specific quality incarnated in you will be revealed by the shock of contrast. For instance, the Martian

THE VISIT TO THE CAVE

89

nature, made all of violence, will easily be enslaved by Venus. The Venusian, seeking for beauty, will rather plunge himself in filth in order to heighten his awareness of beauty. The Solar type, which is dominating, can be a masochist. And the Saturnian, who loves solitude and mystery, often looks for his complement in exhibitionism.”’ ‘Can the Spirit not be reborn in man without these troubles??? ‘‘Before the resurrection comes the descent into hell.’ “Where is hell? Do you know?’’ **In the bowels of the earth of your body! But its fire is also that which causes the resurrection!’’ ‘How can the same principle bring forth opposite effects??? ‘‘When your soul was incarnated in matter, it married itself to the baseness of matter; it can only free itself by subtilizing that which has become bound to it by attraction.’ ‘“That does not answer my question.”’ ‘‘Because you fail to see the double movement of life. Separation resulted from the need to see oneself reflected; attraction is the result of

the need for reunification. But reunification cannot happen until each complement has become perfectly itself. And how could it do that except by recognizing all its tendencies?’’ “*So regeneration is only possible by diving into all this filth?’’ “*T did not say that! No sage would advise a man to put into practice all the filthiness he finds in himself. But no attainment is possible if you shut out the light for fear of thieves and fire. The only way—and you must face it—is to let all your impressions rise to the surface, with all your impulses and urges, and there observe them without telling yourself lies about them, and so learn to play on their contrasts in order to arouse your consciousness of their cosmic tendency, which is their mainspring.”? The man pondered, and asked: ‘‘Playing with fire, isn’t it?’’ “Ts fire any safer hidden beneath its ash? Surely you are not any longer the victim of these obsessions?’’ **No...unless perhaps in dreams.’’ ‘Your dreams are the mirror of your reality. When you escape in sleep from the prison of your intellect, then your instincts show themselves in their true colors, and prove that the force you thought extinguished was merely held in check.’’ The seeker remarked angrily: ‘‘So little good have I seen as I went about the world, and so much ill, that I have condemned any sin which

offended my dignity!”’ The hermit smiled. ‘‘You will be judged by that which you judge, and condemned by that which you condemn.”? **T do not understand.”? ‘“That, for oneself, is sin, which one judges to be a sin. Thus, without

THE OPENING OF THE WAY

90

knowing it, you make your own law, at your own risk and peril.’’ ‘But that is perfectly amoral! Much better refuse to recognize Evil at allie ‘“Your

conclusion

is unsound.

The

aim,

remember,

is to attain

knowledge of the essential principal behind Good and Evil, and then to understand how it relates to the experience of every individual.’’ ‘*What is the Law then?’’ ‘“Learn to know yourself, to the depth of your profoundest instincts. Just as a lion tamer tries an animal until he knows its every trick, so must you outface your most hidden reflexes, and then do whatever your newly developed consciousness will let you do.’’ ‘*That law sounds too flexible, and too arbitrary.’’ ‘It is more rigid than you can possibly imagine. Perception of danger is the best of guides.’’ ‘*And if I fall by the way?’’ . “T did not advise you to put into practice all your instincts, only to uncover and recognize them. What more could you have to fear than you have now? Today your soul is a jungle, much of it unexplored. You must throw light into all its dark corners, search out all its dangerous beasts and reptiles, that heterogeneous collection that you still conceal behind the little word “‘I.’’ Learn to recognize them by their appetites, to become aware of their tricks. Some will be strange to you; others are a part of your kingdom. When they are all docile to your orders, you will know in what your true Self consists.

‘When you have learned that, return to me. When the corn is ripe, and the grapes are beginning to color, then if I find you so disposed I will try to widen your horizon.’’

13 The Sexual Problem

Sex presents a problem which cannot be evaded if one wishes to use its power for development toward the suprahuman; but the mere satisfaction of instinct retards development. Certain doctrines preach the use of sexual excitement as a means of awakening higher faculties and extraordinary powers, but such methods are really dangerous and should be shunned. What they evoke is not the higher faculties, but unhealthy forces from which it is then almost impossible to free oneself. This is one of the greatest perils a man can be involved in, for he becomes the slave of these powers, and runs the risk of complete nervous and mental unbalance. On the other hand, the repression of the sexual instinct is equally a danger. Psychology has demonstrated that a passion violently thwarted is stifled rather than overcome. Conquest is only real when the adversary is disarmed by a more powerful expression of the vital force. So long as we exist in physical bodies, we are subject to Nature’s law of dualization, by which affinity is created between complementary opposites which are separated. This dualization, which is the foundation of Nature and its basic evil, is also the foundation of terrestrial experience, the object of which is to transcend Nature and return to union with the One. It is also the foundation of our cultivation of consciousness, since it gives us the possibility of choice between opposite qualities, between the real and the relative, between what is good or evil for us at the moment. This dualization, being the cause of affinity between complementary opposites, is the cause of sexuality and of the desire that men call love. The error is to confuse love, desire, and need.

THE OPENING OF THE WAY

02

Need is an appetite, and only concerns the physical body. Needs are therefore of the animal nature, the result of physiological functions stimulated at the appropriate point of the natural cycle. Desire, when aroused by need or instinct, is a purely animal impulse. But, quite apart from animal impulses, desire can exist in man as an affinity for qualities or states of being of a more subtle sort. As a rule, however, we are not conscious of its deeper cause, and so we pervert the character of such a desire by confusing it with mere wishes, or even needs, and use it as an excuse for gratifying them, and thus the idea of love is vulgarized. Yet the idea of love, although applied to sexual desire, is a symbol of the absolute Love which has no single object, and which is the fruit of awareness of mutual solidarity. Sexual selection by affinity is a present manifestation of this cosmic love. The danger lies in confusing the origins of the various emotions of love—physical, sentimental, ‘‘ideal,’’ or even supposedly spiritual—for they have generally a sexual foundation, whether conscious or unconscious. For the relation of sex to the brain and liver is either forgotten or unknown. These three factors, the grand triad of the Personality, affect

one another so closely that it is often difficult to distinguish which of them is responsible for a sudden stirring of passion, desire, or thought. If one of them

is overexcited

or in abeyance,

the other two

are affected,

and

produce feelings which the man, unaware of the interaction, takes seriously, not suspecting their physioloical origin. Besides the sexual stirrings produced by the cycles of Nature and human life, each individual is influenced by his own particular instincts, which make him react sexually to certain actions or circumstances. These instinctive characteristics are recorded in the liver, but produce reactions in the sex glands and the brain, and these two, being always in alliance, offer each other excuses for explaining and satisfying the resulting longings. The unawakened man is overtaken by these impulses and easily becomes their slave, spending his energy on them but not becoming enlightened. But he who wishes to escape from his animal nature will sincerely try to uncover his instincts and observe their working. He will of course lose the exciting effect of being taken by surprise, but he will gain in exchange the opportunity of using his instincts consciously to increase his ‘‘vital fire,’’ instead of prostituting the idea of love by confusing it with the satisfaction of an instinct. Sexual energy has the same origin as the subtle fire which gives life. It is for man to use it wisely or else expend it thoughtlessly. He whose aim is satisfaction will refuse to learn control, preferring to be

THE SEXUAL PROBLEM

93

at the mercy of surprises and receive his pleasure without effort. But the man who has in him, even unconsciously, a sense of the true Love, will be

ashamed of animal sexuality, except in the service of perpetuating the species. This comes from his moral sense, the voice of conscience, which is our judge. Then the problem arises, what to do with the vital fire? Should one suffocate it, or can it be used to raise us to a higher life? To deny or suffocate sexual excitement is an act of suppression dictated by the will, and results only too often in redirecting the energy into intellectual or sentimental imaginings, with psychological trouble as a frequent consequence. Alternatively, continual suppression may lead to flaccidity, which is the way of death and not of life; for impotence is not the same as mastery! True mastery, without unfortunate consequences, is only attained when an inferior joy is replaced by a higher one. If slavery to sensual pleasure is an animal slavery, on the other hand conscious desire is of the human realm; indeed it is the key to life and liberation, once it is clarified, that is, stripped of artificial excuses. That desire, which is the key of life, seeks to increase the vital fire, and

can be stirred or exalted either by sexual excitement or by the Will to the Light. Sexual excitement makes desire hypocritical if it has to excuse itself with aestheticism, sentimentality, and intellectual erotic imaginations. For all forms of eroticism are basically the search for emotional shock. And the cause of this emotional shock is an act which suddenly upsets the balance of our feelings; it violates our normal standard of feelings about morality, or about love and friendship, about reputation or security. Whether the shock is given by pain or joy or anguish, it is always a loss of balance which upsets our natural inertia. The shock is desired for excitement’s sake; and if the aim of the excitement is sexual satisfaction,

nothing will be gained but the one sensual pleasure. A more conscious being, who looks for a higher joy, will desire the shock in order to strengthen his interior fire. In any case, therefore, to desire an emotional shock is to desire a loss of equilibrium. Any excess can do this, but erotic excess does it to increase the heat of sexual feeling. Erotic perversions are always a compensation for the tyranny of the Ego. Masochism is inverted authoritarianism, and the wallowing in degradation is the inversion, or mortification, of sensual aestheticism.

If their aim is only animal pleasure and satisfaction, erotic impulses can debase; but equally, if the intention is the opposite, they can serve like other emotional shocks to enhance consciousness and life. The difference lies in the aim and in the mode of application.

94

THE OPENING OF THE WAY

A man who risks his life for an impersonal cause may find an exaltation in the fear of danger because of the joy of sacrificing his purely selfish security. If you can choose at will either to yield deliberately to your animal nature, without making excuses for it, or else to control it and find in doing so the exaltation of sacrifice, then you have found one of the keys of life, the key to the transmutation of the vital fire. The joy of overcoming oneself transforms the desire for a fugitive pleasure into desire for the infinite Joy. This cannot be too often repeated.

14 The Pendulum

Spirit is the substantial source of “‘things’’; but ‘‘things’’ become opposed to Spirit; ‘“things’’ are passive and react. Man, in his Automatic Self, is a ‘‘thing’’; he does not discern the

source of his impulses, but submits to them passively like a reed in the wind; he is their plaything when unaware of them; and if he revolts against them he must suffer from their resistance. Thus by the law of alternation he swings to and fro like a pendulum: effort—impotence; hope—despair. And the law of reaction means that the higher the rise, the more grievous the fall. Instead of this one can learn to ‘‘live’’ the pendulum; and therein can Wisdom be found. For the alternation is inevitable. To recognize it is to abolish the anxiety that comes of ignorance; to have its measure is to be able to master it; not to resist it is to attain peace; and to use its impetus is to increase one’s vital force. The movement has four phases: First phase: Will to power and mastery Second phase: Lack of balance Third phase: Absence of will Fourth phase: Balanced serenity. The will to power gives the impetus to mount, and pitiful indeed is the timid man who does not dare to use it. False humility keeps his soul enslaved, taking a morbid satisfaction-in his wretchedness. This is the putrid virtue of mediocrity. The aim of every tradition of wisdom is to gain possession of the ‘‘inner kingdom,’’ for to hold that is the key to the “‘Kingdom of Heaven,”’

96

THE OPENING OF THE WAY

which is a kingdom not of this earth. But the man who seeks it has his feet on the ground, and his body is his instrument. His personal form is the obstacle he must overcome, but the Will to the Light reveals from time to time the Secret Being within him. The true Name of that Being, though unknown to its bearer, is the thread that binds together all his existences, and its consciousness is the ‘divine kingdom’’ in which the human Personality becomes the servant of its Immortal Self. This victory of the suprahuman, being the highest aim we can have on earth, is not won without striking a blow; and the Lower Self is both the

weapon to be used and the intended victim. Its resistance therefore is inevitable, and its instinct of self-preservation classes the Individuality as its opponent. But the prospect of power will draw it like a bait. The power is perfectly real. Mastery of the physical body gives health and strength; mastery of the emotions prevents one from being controlled by others, and opens the inward ear; mastery of the mind, by which the arising thoughts can be either formulated or abolished at will, makes possible intuitive vision. The prospect of such power as this should surely suffice to overcome inertia. And we shall be wise to use it, for it will give us the impetus to mount. Only we must remain alert to substitute the Will to the Light for the will to power; for thus at every upward step the quality of the power will be less personal and more altruistic, since it comes from mastery over the grasping instinct of our egocentric nature. The aim of the whole operation is to give the pendulum energy. The moment of success is critical, for the notion of reaching the limit restricts effort and leads to a falling back. This is where wisdom should intervene; for, realizing the instability of the success obtained, it would accept the limit as the prerequisite of a new creative impulse—which will arise, but not before its proper time. That is the secret! Worldly persons dislike this game intensely, for if they make an effort they expect to enjoy the fruits of it; so to prevent the falling back they use their willpower to insist upon a result—and the pendulum breaks. The third phase of the pendulum is, mystically speaking, the compensation for the proud effort of power, namely absence of will, which means acceptance, not of impotence but of the vital law of alternation. It accepts the phase of descent without resistance, being certain that a new phase of energy will follow. And in a similar way our understanding of the pendulum’s action can be enlarged from the merely personal field to the universal. The decisive moment is when the pendulum’s further movement is

THE PENDULUM

97

rejected by the proud man who refuses to accept descent, and justified in him who does accept it. For the humility of the sage is to understand that power is only knowledge of the law. He who accepts the descent will find at the bottom of it the fruit of his awareness of it, namely serenity and balance. Thus is that peace attained which gives renewed impetus for a further rise by means of a legitimate will to power. The amplitude of the pendulum’s swing is determined by one’s own stage of awareness; but without a fresh impulse it tends to diminish. This is the justification of the means suggested to set it going, namely the arousing of a personal instinct in order to start the game which in the end will destroy the personal attitude by forcing it to acknowledge the law of alternation. Absolute cessation of alternation could only be the result of universalization of consciousness. This path, which makes use of the contradictions in an individual’s nature, is the contrary of that which tries to abolish weaknesses by denying their existence; that only creates inhibitions. The pendular movement is continually exemplifed in the alternation of dilation and contraction, and we should learn to make use of it. The air penetrates our bodies by the double movement of respiration; and, like our lungs, the earth itself expands and contracts.

All things living on earth partake of this alternation between dilation and contraction, inspiration and expiration. Dilation is the happy moment of expanding into oneness. Contraction is the satanic function of materialization. Both are necessary, but to use them wisely one must understand their motive forces. Dilation is a gesture of union, of absorption into the Cosmos, without selection, opposition, or separation. Its tendency is to expansion, to the breaking of bounds, to the fusion of all in All. It is the absence of personal will, the opening of the heart without reserve, the attempt to escape into the Abyss beyond the frontiers of matter. It is the upward movement of the pendulum; but the pendulum falls inevitably back, since its point of attachment is on earth. Its descent is the movement of expiration and contraction. All things except the Absolute Unity are subject to this alternation; it is the most inexorable motion in the becoming of the universe. For this reason Wisdom does not seek peace in continual ‘‘Good,”’ without ugliness and without a falling back, but rather in the skillful use of oppositions.

98

THE OPENING OF THE WAY

Dilation is inevitably followed by contraction, and therefore all progress, all generous expansion is at once followed by a reaction. If you wish to know what the reaction will be, consider your private motives for resistance, for it will take their character; and they will be your intellectual criticisms, your doubts and rebellions, your skepticism and pessimism. If you are not aware of this reaction, it will control you, and you may sadly conclude that the progress which you made in the period of expansion has been all wiped out in the period of contraction. Thus do men of goodwill, if they are ignorant victims of this lamentable seesaw, proceed with their spiritual evolution at the speed of a tortoise. To attain victory quickly, one must become aware of the contrary rhythm and learn to take advantage of its movement in the antagonistic direction, just as a blacksmith uses the rebound of his hammer to diminish its deadweight; the anvil, by its resistance, throws up the hammer, and the blacksmith requires less effort to bring it down again. The rebound increases with repetition up to a certain number of strokes, determined by the fatigue of the metal, which also needs its intervals of rest.

Consider this law carefully, and draw the conclusion. The phase of contraction is a necessary evil; how can you make use of

it? Every action increases in amplitude if encouraged by a reaction. Contraction is a satanic tautening of muscle in order to hold what one has grasped; it is the avarice of Matter storing up its nourishment in itself. It is the fear of losing oneself, the turning in upon oneself, the need to know one’s limits in order to lock up the ego in an impenetrable shell. Contraction condenses and concretizes. When you feel it coming over you, bring your progress down to the material level; act, execute, write down what you have learned in the period of exaltation. This is the exact opposite of what the Automaton does; he submits to the phase of depression as a phase of impotence, and lets gloom and resentment torture him in vain. The expansive phase, on the other hand, the Automaton uses up in exuberant action, distracting and dispersing himself, in fact wasting and scattering the vitality that he receives in that phase. One should observe this ebb and flow attentively, and use the pendular rhythm to increase one’s strength. In the period of expansion one should seek silence, lengthen one’s meditations, and stay quiet as much as possible in order to listen; to heat up the inner fire. You waste your treasure if you yield to the temptation of externalizing your joy in talk and

THE PENDULUM

99

action. Your ardor should expand not outwardly but inwardly. For only calm and silence can give full power to the phases of impulse, expansion, and self-giving, which will revitalize your being. Exterior action should be reserved for the dark period of contraction. In this phase of harshness and cold assert your conquests, materialize your dreams, and bring to concrete expression that which you understood and assimilated in the phase of joy. Like the blacksmith, use reaction to assist action, to give form to what you have conceived. The astringent side of one’s nature can be used to give clarity and form to new knowledge. And if the combative mood prevails in spite of everything, set it an absorbing intellectual or manual task; a is much better than to let it impede your progress.

Cas"

rvs

ginse dan

34)

Ÿ seu iT'ES thin:

star OF comely Eis ht Vote ea

He pe

5

Cea

ay

eT.

om A

gods palin tests

girl ate TR LES" af Pap CA

ch

ven dolls ts echt

RS tu

nrmms ie

en

th

SUR ENS DRE meg

ont

RS

cr BA sey

or Pr À AR SDS VUE ae. tet

EM

À Va leg Muni Métés

shtmetee

et

Lou

thes

ok

ae wt

latices Mt»

ts Le Bye™ yore SHE ey My a agian iets

tiFEESPE, Rite angers

r AE

Ses

Le

ia

ETES TANT Gon ute", RE

LS \a

Lac

[LEA

=?

d'a Les Lait |

Wi

dog mnt

tree"

as dt sens ME

“a ps F4 car"

ride

ve

ve)

en

rages.

©

M4 =

rss

mir

Gti

hore

rece

freaint (ogee din = D)

VA

véto nein

bn

ee

>

a.

aK

par

ils crane

:

ewe

Ets"

cae 4 taéte 4 éme nia, With em wy ae rae. et ere

7

eRe

ie

-

:

Ps

on

=

TEE MESS. mca

a

de

agers bee

oo Porn eon

É

Pan

rar

SN

hee Oe. Ayes,

2 ee

des wilt

se

cm

:

19 Reincarnation

and Karma

The first question that the curious ask about the wisdom tradition is almost always: ‘‘What becomes of us after death? Are we born again? When, how, and how often?’’

But only too commonly the spirit in which the question is asked invites an absurd answer. It is as if one should ask a pious Roman Catholic of what material the apostles’ heavenly thrones are made. Yet that is not just a joke; some deeply religious people would examine the question seriously, and each would find an answer in his imagination. For once the invisible world is under discussion, any theory will .be listened to—‘‘One guess is as good as another, isn’t it?’’—and one can safely make assertions which no one will come from Beyond to contradict. It seems to be the same with reincarnation; the ignorant can defend their opinions easily enough! Unfortunately neither their opinions nor their religious beliefs will prevent them from enduring after death the inevitable consequences of their karma, which one might call the law of their own necessity. All religions taught reincarnation until Christianity came and publicized the principle of redemption, which can, in the man in whom it is realized, bring reincarnations to an end. Now, the Christ also taught Nicodemus that no one can enter the Kingdom of Heaven unless he be born again, and, more precisely, unless

he ‘‘be born of water and of the spirit... . That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit’? (John 3:5-6). In other words, the divine life of the Kingdom of Heaven can only be enjoyed by the immortal being whose spiritual seed (the Spiritual Witness)

144

THE OPENING OF THE WAY

has regenerated the Ego-Consciousness (the Permanent Witness), which is its medium of expression. And ‘‘medium’’ here implies also the mean between high and low, between spiritual and physical, as water lies between air and earth. This is the rebirth which the last purifying reincarnation makes possible, before or even after death. By this rebirth a human being becomes a Son of Man; for ‘‘no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven’’—that is, from his own spiritual being—‘‘even the Son of man which is in heaven’’ (John 3:13)—that is, in the divine state. And of this the Christ is the prototype, the human made immortal and united with the Divine,

which has regenerated it. Some modern writers, in spite of the teaching of many centuries, deny reincarnation except in rare cases. But if one asks the present teachers of the tradition, they will reply as we do here: ‘‘If I denied reincarnation I should be lying, but if I assert it without explaining its real meaning, you would imagine things which are not so.”” Mere common sense obliges us therefore, before penetrating more deeply into the subject, to examine the questioner’s depth of understanding. What does he know of his spiritual state? What knowledge of it can his brain-consciousness offer him? What does he know of his metaphysical being? Or his astral nature? Has he developed his intuitive faculties? If he has no experience of these different domains, if he cannot even reanimate his physical body at will, how can he understand the various possibilities of reincarnation? Most people, if one speaks of the physical world as a mere transitory appearance, are scandalized, yet they refuse to train the faculties which would give them access to the invisible realm. What language, then, could one use to explain to the popular mind postmortem conditions with which it can make no contact? One might as well talk of color to a man born blind. Surely it is obvious that your convictions, when devoid of any check, are founded upon your preferences, and are of no more value than the opinions of armchair strategists discussing the plans of a battle without any information about the troops engaged. Basically, you are anxious for the survival of your personal self, by which you mean your acquired framework of brain-knowledge, your scientific, social, or aesthetic ideals, your ambitions, in fact the little world so laboriously built up around your Ego, whose loss would seem to you a cosmic disaster. How disillusioned you would be if you would let your higher consciousness tell you that this artificial Ego is just the unnecessary luggage which the individual jettisons after death!

REINCARNATION

AND KARMA

145

Few men can accept this reality and not revolt—as if their denial of it could impede the working of a cosmic law! But illusion so thoroughly blinds men that they would be willing to lose a limb, and then another limb, and even one of their intellectual faculties,

provided that they could keep in a future world the notions and appearances which have constituted on earth their social, intellectual, and emotional personality. But, among all your attachments, preferences, and varying opinions, have you so much as selected those which you will ask death to perpetuate as your true eternal self? Do be careful to avoid a choice in questionable taste! Where the time is so long, that would be sickening! The purpose of this irony is to help your real self to prevail against the selfish routines of your unseeing personality. If this chapter revolts you, postpone reading it until you are more inclined. But if your will is toward the Light, observe what follows. If you want to know why and how reincarnation happens, let us make an experiment. Lie down, and see that the body, and above all the nerves, are completely relaxed. Then repeat, slowly and with attention, these words, trying as you do so to convince yourself that they are entirely true: “*I abandon here and now all worry, all preoccupations, all personal will... .I wash away all grief and all regret, all spite and vengeance... I give up all personal love, all plans, all longings, and all hopes for earthly things.’’ If you try really to be sincere in making these assertions, I defy you to speak the words without misgiving. Certain flame-hot fibers will revolt in you, will refuse such a surrender and contradict any such undertaking. Those are the threads that will drag you back to earth. Inevitably! Spiritual states have nothing in common with your memories, or with the imaginings and intellectual interests of your earthly being; but those memories impress their emotional attraction upon your Ego-Consciousness, and this prevents its liberation and causes you to return to earthly existence, by attraction, by the yearning for completeness. This is one of the most important aspects of the law of karma. We are obliged to use the Sanskrit word karma because there is no exact correspondence in our European languages. One can say, however, that karma is the true meaning of Necessity. Karma is the inevitable succession of effects resulting from the deeds, words, and actions of human life.

If you shout toward an echoing cliff, you cannot stop the reverberation of the repeated sound. So too will each one of your acts bear its consequences, and you will have to undergo their effects until they are completely exhausted.

146

THE OPENING OF THE WAY

The first incarnation of your ka determined the time and manner of your first earthly existence, and its conditions regarding parents, place, and so forth. The time, manner, and conditions became in turn the causes of very

many effects, that is, of influences modifying the secondary characteristics and behavior of your Ego. These were then able to complicate and sometimes upset the rhythm of action which the plan of your destiny had designed for you. Thus do new causes produce new consequences, and so reincarnation remains inevitable until the effects of these disturbances have been canceled out. Thus are formed the links in your chain of karma. With some acts, several incarnations may be necessary before their repercussions are finally exhausted. An insult or a murder may lead its perpetrator to reincarnate at a place and time which will give him an opportunity for reparation; but in this there is no deliberate choice, no design of punishment, only Necessity, the inevitable play of reactions arising from the crime. If the hatred provoked by an act of violence is expressed in vengeance, then the vengeance will arouse more hatred followed by further vengeance, as in the custom of the vendetta, and this will postpone indefinitely the exhaustion of the evil karma. A race, like an individual, has its karma, or necessity. But we must

distinguish between karma and destiny. If you strike the note C, it sets in vibration certain other notes which are known as its harmonics. One hears the fundamental C, the C an octave

higher, G a fifth higher still, the second octave C, with the mediant E above it, and even further harmonics determined by numerical law but too faint to be distinguished. All these harmonics are the destiny of the original C. If the string is damaged or badly played on, a wrong sound will be produced, and will continue to be heard until its vibrations are exhausted. This is an example of karma, or necessity turned aside from the plan of destiny. But, you will say, what about free will? If I am brought to earth by previous impulses, and all my acts are determined in a succession that I cannot escape, then my decisions are being dictated to me by fate, and I am just an irresponsible marionette. To a superficial observer of this intricate drama, the objection may be valid. Let us, however, note the finer points of the tragicomedy. The scene is a familiar one, determined by the need to have certain experiences or to pay certain karmic debts. But the atmosphere is heavy with storm. Various people move about in the background, some brought by karma, like yourself, some led by their destiny, and others attracted by the impending drama.

REINCARNATION

AND KARMA

147

In the foreground, yourself, the hero of the story. Let us have a look at you through our many-dimensional binoculars, which will reveal the complex movements of all your states of consciousness, as well as the urges arising in your Automaton. First I see a universe of organs and canals arranged about two poles and central sun. Liquid and fluid streams of energy flow constantly to and fro around the organic centers. Some of these act in combination, others struggle to prevail against each other. I see how lymphatic weakness, the unresponsiveness of spleen or hypochondria, and the bitter reactions of the bile make their effect upon the will and consume the vital energies. Looking more closely, I see each organ influenced by the planet with which it holds analogy, attracting and repelling various substances according to its affinities, and, like the planets, creating around it a sphere

of influence not static, for an organ’s working modifies the humors just as the movement of the planets alters the balance of the heavens. Suddenly trouble arises; a critical case must be decided immediately, and contradictory interests are involved. The ensuing anxiety creates a disturbance of the bile, and sets off a chain reaction in the intellect and

emotions, whereby all the data of the problem become confused. Such a moment might be called an ‘‘astrological crisis’? ; it seems a trap from which the actor cannot escape. What will he decide to do? He is so tense, as a result of this internal disorder, that he fails to notice the various minor actors on the scene—some ‘‘good intentions’’ in the foreground, an ancient spite coming in, ambitions elbowing their way to the front, and all of them making eddies in the currents that influence him. Yet the poor man imagines himself alone, as he struggles with his uncertainty. But watch! Something has touched his spiritual mainspring, and from the depths of his substance a vague awareness wakens, a light comes into the hero’s eyes, and from heaven, as if by chance, comes a flash, revealing an unforeseen solution. Then from some deep dungeon rises an old habit of mind, with its pretorian guard of rigid principles, and their gaunt shapes block the newly seen opening of the path. The actor searches for it in desperation, but the moment of Light has passed, and darkness conspires to thwart him. However feeble the voice of conscience, still it makes his heart contract.

The contest seems unequal, and he hesitates to break the resistance down by violence. What should he do? He looks to us, so let us give him an answer. ‘*Poor marionette, do at least look at the forces that are playing with you, before you take a decision! ‘‘AIl the present constituents of your being are agglomerations of

148

THE OPENING OF THE WAY

previous experiences which hide your real Self, and all are trying to live their own lives, taking advantage of your ignorance. You are a kingdom in anarchy, waiting for its master to wake and organize it. Do you find that hard to believe??? ‘What can I do? I am only an Automaton without free will; all my actions are predetermined!’’ ‘*There you are wrong! For even if your acts are determined by outside influences, and by your karma, nevertheless you have at every critical moment liberty not to will them, or rather, liberty not to oppose the destiny which was impressed upon you at birth. For that destiny is your true harmony. ‘*You have the choice between this not-willing, and a free decision to will something different—which means to create disharmony. ‘“So your famous free will looks rather negative; you do not need an effort of will when you follow the impulse of harmony with your true being.’’ ‘“On the contrary, it takes an enormous effort of will to restrain my evil instincts!’’ “That is because you do your fighting with arguments. You are using the wrong weapons. The heart’s appeal might be heard, but you are using the brain instead. Men decide their differences by memory and reason, which plead too coldly to gain the final verdict. Rational thinking does not hold the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, for the keys are Simplicity, Faith—which is identification—and Love—which is communion with the Fire. ““If you think as the world thinks, your so-called faith is not an experience impressed upon your consciousness; it is founded either on argument or on acceptance of current beliefs. ‘‘Vour charity, too, is only conscience money, or perhaps an insurance policy for the life beyond. ‘And your morality is equalitarian, ignoring the spiritual needs of individuals. Its legal schedule stifles the inner voice of conscience which tells you the requirements of harmony from moment to moment, and suggests appropriate action. Most meen

this action is submission

to

the events by which it gathers experience.’ **That’s fatalism!”’ ‘Not at all; it is agreement with the urge to attain harmony with the plan of your destiny. The inward ear, if it is trained, can pick up warning of material and spiritual dangers, just as simple, instinctive people do who do not cultivate divergency of the will.” ‘But how can one distinguish the urge to harmony from the divergency of the will???

REINCARNATION

AND KARMA

149

‘That is the crucial point; one learns from the idea of karma. A man who by a process of reasoning chooses what he believes to be his good may be mistaken, for a given action may be required of him by the plan of his destiny.* But if he is convinced of an unescapable necessity, he will instinctively avoid any act that would aggravate his karma. With further development he can learn to counteract the kinetic energy of the karmic wheel, and instead of being a marionette he becomes a master.’’ The scene has altered a little; there is a rift in the clouds, and the actor has the courage to turn around and look at his companions. As he observes them, they slowly withdraw to the background, returning to their proper stations. Force of habit has grown weaker, yet still it returns, threatening to obscure the way. Evening is coming on. Will the hero be able to take advantage of the clearance, or will he again let his free will mislead him? Thus the curtain falls on a scene in which you, as seeker, have been both actor and spectator. Being a matter of life and death, it is a tragedy; but it is also a comedy, since ignorance makes human effort so frequently absurd. When the scene is over, the actors will consider the impression it has produced; and perhaps some of them will not appear again. The actors will continue to appear until the kinetic energy of the wheel of karma is finally exhausted. It is the thirst for satisfaction that draws human beings back to the places where they have loved and suffered and vibrated, as it brings back the criminal to the scene of his crime. Karmic necessity makes the perfect foundation for the moral law, philosophically speaking; but if applied exclusively, it would seem cruel. In itself, karma requires that one should have respect for everything that happens to oneself or others, this being logically regarded as the necessary consequence of previous actions requiring justice and reparation. An equally logical consequence would be an attitude of impassive indifference to the misfortunes or misery of one’s neighbor. I can hope to diminish the impact on my neighbor of effects that I have caused, but not of effects which he has set in motion himself.

If I see a human being suffering, and I can help him, that will not modify the karmic consequences of his acts, but I shall perhaps be able to reduce his resentment, improve his rhythm, and thus prevent him from making his burden heavier. We must not forget that we are all members of the Cosmic Man, and this solidarity means that, to a certain extent, we participate in all that affects others. To that extent, therefore, we can improve their state of *See Chapter 18, second obstacle.

150

THE OPENING OF THE WAY

being by the essential reality of our own. This is how the influence of impersonal love can be effective in compensating the harshness of the law of karma. If the final aim and liberation of a spiritual being is to cease returning to terrestrial existence, it is desirable nonetheless that reincarnation should

continue until the bonds of karma have been dissolved and the various aspects of consciousness united. It is difficult to explain schematically what is or is not possible, but we can aid our imagination with the analogy of a crystal. The specific axial system of a given crystalline form may be taken to represent the Divine Ka. And as a crystal dissolves in water, its formative solution represents its medium of expression. If a very small crystal of the same substance is added to a sufficiently concentrated solution, identical crystals will be formed;

in other words,

the substance of the medium will be induced to reconstitute itself in accordance with the principles of its Ka; this represents reincarnation. But if the solution is insufficiently concentrated, then the crystal dropped in will simply dissolve into the water and remain in a state of nonexistence; that is, it will not be able to reincarnate.

Though the analogy is not perfect, it helps us to understand the condition of discarnate beings, that is, of their Ego-Consciousness or Intermediate Ka. Some of them, not having created any homogeneous medium, cannot crystallize out around their Divine Ka, nor yet take form in reincarnation for lack of any center of attraction. Like the crystal dissolved in a foreign or too-dilute solution, they are in danger of remaining after death in that state of latency which is known to the West as Limbo—unable to make themselves real in either the one state or the other. It was to escape this danger that the ancient peoples used so often the indirect means of portrait statues of the deceased, pictures of him enjoying his favorite occupations, Tablets of Ancestors, and so forth; the purpose of these was to act as a terrestrial bait, by reason of the emotional attraction which they can exercise so long as the Ego-Consciousness possesses an astral body. To understand what really happens in reincarnation one must first know the elements of the human constitution. That which reincarnates is that which cannot be destroyed by death; that is, the two aspects of consciousness, the Spiritual Witness and the Permanent Witness, also called the Divine Ka and the Intermediate Ka.

If during its life on earth the Permanent Witness has integrated into itself the animal consciousness of its body (its animal Ka), it has thus

REINCARNATION AND KARMA

151

created the medium in which its ‘‘glorious body’’ will be able by degrees to build itself up through communion with the Spiritual Witness—until, whether before or after death, both are united and so attain their final liberation. But until this final victory is achieved, there is always a danger that the

Spiritual Witness will withdraw if during life on earth the Personality refuses to obey it. And whatever powers the Permanent Witness may have acquired, if death catches it in this state of dissociation from its higher self, it will only be able to follow in the other world the same selfish dispositions as it evinced on earth. It is always the unquenchable thirst of the Ego, wanting its own way, that prevents the possibility of union with the Divine Ka, the Spiritiual Witness to the Impersonal Self; whose power it perceives and envies. This is why the funerary pictures of ancient Egypt represent man as ‘in search of his Ka,’’ without which he cannot attain his final immortality. This anxious search for the Divine Ka corresponds to the pains of damnation by which Christian theology expresses the sufferings of the damned as a consciousness of being deprived of God, who has become inaccessible to them. Both descriptions correspond to the same reality, except for the question of perpetuity; for the funerary scenes of Egypt represent the obstacles which prevent the discarnate person from being united with his Ka, but do not present them as an irremediable conditon of perpetual hell. This state of unsatisfaction may also lead to a reincarnation under such conditions as will increase the inflation of the Ego, especially if it has acquired in its previous life the first key* to the suprahuman realm, namely control of its three lower states of being which are part of Nature. This explains the innate disposition which certain persons have toward a real mastery of human life, but which they use for the very opposite of spiritual realization, namely temporal domination. If for this reason, or by any other denial of the light, a man renders himself incapable of regeneration by his Spiritual Witness, it may happen that the latter will withdraw completely and finally, thus exposing the conscious ‘‘I’’ to that dissolution of which theologians speak with horror as ‘‘the second death.”’ Whatever be the cause and conditions of such a withdrawal, which may occur either during or after life on earth, a man thus emptied of his

immortal elements is reduced to the condition of a human animal which *See Chapter 6.

152

THE OPENING OF THE WAY

can no longer enter into the suprahuman realm. After his death his animal souls, or Inferior Kas, will try to take form in their own realms, animal, vegetable, or mineral, and thus restart the cycle; and in the course of it there is a chance of their being once again ensouled by Spirit. Thus the divine compassion is still at work. This too may explain such strange doctrines as metempsychosis,

provided we consider it the incarnation of residue.

20 The Masters

Tradition asserts the existence of certain Masters of Widsom; but this

needs to be clarified. Among other things, it has been said that there are three Masters as guides on the three great mystic paths—the Master of Knowledge, the Master of Love, and the Master of Action. First we must understand the meaning of the three paths. They are the three ways in which enlargement of consciousness is possible. Knowledge comes from an enlargement of consciousness by which the mind is identified with the thing known. Its criteria and characteristics have already been described, and it does not in principle comprise any form of action. Love means complete giving, in the sense of an unlimited expansion of ‘“Myself”” into the Universal Self. It wants nothing but to radiate, and acts always impersonally, giving without discrimination, for there is no personal will. This expansiveness leads again to identification; but it may not express itself in any intelligible knowledge. Action, in principle, is movement, the execution of a will; for without will there is no action, and will itself is a movement toward a definite aim. Thus will and movement have much in common.

Mystically, action is the execution either of a will that must be obeyed or of an impulse due to necessity of circumstances. But the necessity is always ultimately the effect of an earlier personal act of will, sometimes long ago, the consequences of which have produced this obligation to further action. In other words, all action is obedience to a will.

But action does not include knowledge, for knowledge is obscured by both movement and will. For this reason guides and instructors must limit themselves to the very minimum needed for the discharge of their mission.

154

THE OPENING OF THE WAY

The man of action should first examine the quality of the will which he obeys; for the property of action is action for its own sake, in complete acceptance of the directions given, and without care for the consequences. But in any case it is wiser not to divide the mystical quest into three such definite categories; it may help beginners, but hardly corresponds with reality. No element in life can be dissected like a corpse. Everything living is complex, and each of the three ways should be regarded as a strong tendency which can only realize itself by being to some extent combined with one or both of the others. We can now return to our original question. Are there Masters with suprahuman powers who watch, judge, and help us? If so, where do they live, and who are they? If we try to explain this by using the technical language of existing doctrines, we shall run into a dispute about the meanings of words. It would be better to examine the facts in a new spirit, trying to forget our preconceived ideas and terms. If we cast an impartial glance over the human groups inhabiting our earth, we can gather a rich harvest of symbols, dogmas, and cults, besides

finding the most curious practices, the most contradictory codes of morals, and the most uncompromising fanaticisms. On Good Friday the different communions of the One True Faith fight in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In the jungles of Africa fetishes keep alive the primitive doctrine of animism. Next to the Buddhist disciples of compassion we find Kali’s ferocious Thugs; for both Shiite and Sunnite the muezzin chants the oneness of Allah; and Zoroaster’s Parsees assert the duality of the First Principle! And yet from every breast rises the anxious cry: ‘‘Help us, protect us, give to us, O you gods, angels, saints, marabouts, djinns! Do for us what

we have not the courage to do for ourselves!’’ How pathetic is humanity, always talking of independence and liberty, and yet unable to regain its original title, Lord of Creation. Adam, the Red Earth Man, could ‘‘name’’ all the other creatures, which means that he

had within him the power to master them. O man, what have you done with your power? The trouble comes, perhaps, from that strange legend which every sect of every faith whispers secretly to itself: ‘‘Our own Messiah is coming! Our King of the World is nigh! The Mahdi is ours! The Christ is ours! Our Master will come and reign over all nations!’ From East to West, all fanatics hang on to this hope, and every cult’s believers make it their own. All are waiting, praying, calling on Him Who shall bring them—what? Light? Alas, no! World dominion, of all things! In their obsession with temporal power, that is how priests and people have translated the great promise of the Gospel concerning the Master:

THE MASTERS

155

‘Watch therefore; for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come’’ (Matthew 24:42)—a passage referring to the new influx and awakening of the Divine Man in those who are so disposed. But who is the Master? Have patience. You want to know too soon; he who would win perfect knowledge must begin by recognizing his perfect ignorance. If you were not deceived by words, you would not have failed to recognize the Master already. Have you never, in silence, reflected on the deep meaning of this idea, or felt the shiver of his actual presence? The Master is that power which in a moment of unbalance seizes you, overcomes you, reveals you to yourself, sometimes even, by surprise, succeeds in making you the king of yourself. The Master is the speaker’s thrilling point of argument, which suddenly moves

you;

the

metalworker’s

skill,

when

the

perfection

of

his

‘‘appropriate gesture’’ grips you; the unexpected reaction of a chemical combination, showing an unknown law at work against previous calculation. He is the beggar who disturbs your ease by appearing, famished, on the doorstep of the restaurant where you are having a good dinner. He is the sea, first peaceful, then seizing the fisherman with terror, as its great waves unfurl the tempest and dismast the ship, unless the man has been able to catch the wild rhythm of the elements and trim his sails at the favorable moment. He is the longing to kill which bursts forth in a jealous man who thought himself certain of his virtue. But how can the Master be such moments of violence? He can, for if there is a good Master there is also a bad one. The ‘“Master”” is the forced identification with one’s inner being, when one is seized by an irresistible vibration which puts one into unison with it. For at such a moment that vibration is your master. One can only master that which one knows, and one does not know this impetuous power—or at least one has failed for a moment to recognize it, and so one is taken by surprise, and identified and confounded by it. That is ‘‘the visit of the Master.”’ Human

masterhood,

on the other hand, is continuous

awareness,

so

steady that it can no longer be taken by surprise. Such moments, however they come, are moments of blessing, for they are opportunities for Light, which would transfigure you if you knew.... Men are afraid of them, of course. They prefer to remain in ignorance of their impulses of cruelty and hatred, hiding them in some dark corner of their substance, whence one day they will spring out uncontrollably. But if one looks them in the face, lets them vibrate in consciousness, they reveal

156

THE OPENING OF THE WAY

certain secret tendrils which are growing without one’s knowledge. And once they are known, one can learn to destroy them. We are afraid of emotion. If your heart bleeds for the hungry beggar, you will not enjoy your meal. And we think it safer to distrust the emotional power of words; it might be disturbing if we allowed them too much importance. So let us be careful! Let us be afraid of life! Let us not see the Light ‘‘by mistake’’! How happy is the simple heart, which, without respect of persons, can salute the Master at his passing, whatever face he shows: thunderbolt, shame or terror, enthusiasm or lust, beggar or genius, Machiavelli or Jesus. That which wakes the Spirit in you is an appeal from the Master of your soul. It comes in many ways—desire, remorse, the longing for excess or for infinity, the creative urge—but it is always a flaming up of the Fire that was buried in you the day that you were “‘given”” a living soul, and from time to time it melts you and you become a volcano. We often speak of the soul, but we do not speak of this Fire. The soul of imperfect man is complex, so much so that its anarchic elements can set in motion urges which have no apparent connection, and one ceases to recognize oneself. But though its manifestations are various, there is only one Fire in the world. The Original Fire is one and indivisible; but when it has descended into a substance and incubated there, it divides into two opposing fires. There are then two poles—the accepted world and its black shadow, or celestial fire and terrestrial fire, desire and will. There is therefore conflict,

and out of this conflict come suffering, uncertainty, and sickness. Where there is conflict there is life, and if the fires of the two poles meet for an instant there is a flash. Thus every conjunction means the momentary destruction of a form; but since terrestrial nature cannot ever remain static, the decomposition of any part creates new life and activity. This is a key which, with profound meditation, will open many doors. The Fire is always Fire; it remains, but it transforms everything. Hidden in the seed which the wet earth will awaken, it may slumber long before its resurrection. But when it does awake, it gently warms into life, and begins to show its activity by dividing into two principles, so that conflict arises. ‘‘Its revolution creates the movement of life.’’ Here let us make a pause; for we are on the edge of a mystery so profound that there must first be a dialogue between heart and reason: “This is inconceivable! How can That, the Spiritual Fire, which is the

living motive-power of everything, be a long time awaiting its resurrection? Why this patience? Can the principle of life be inertia? It gives us

THE MASTERS

157

our will to live, and has it none of its own? Does That which is Reality not try to overcome the illusions of form? Does That which is Truth have no will to prevail over discord?’’ ‘You, O brain, think thus because you always analyze and compare; you judge the world by yourself. But in Nature there is no good or evil, only attraction and repulsion. Those are the forces which the essential Fire obeys, and they are elementary, not rational.’’ “What! Is the Spirit not its own master??? ‘No. Once caught in the net of matter, it must obey the necessities of the realm in which it is incarnate, just as the ovum, once fertilized by the sperm, must infallibly follow through the phases of gestation of its species.”’ **So it is a prisoner in its own substance?”’ ‘Yes, until the union is dissolved; then it is delivered from its bonds, and can resume life by uniting with whatever in that substance has developed an affinity with it.”’ **But this could only happen by means of death.” “Tt is a death which happens innumerable times in your life, every time a piece of matter becomes your own living flesh.’’ ‘*What do you call that which is bound like this??? ‘“The sensitive soul.’’ ‘*What! Is the soul made of matter?”’ *“No, but it appears to be because it always requires a substance as its vehicle.’’ So, though the Spiritual Principle is simple, this soul we are talking of is complex, because it is the agglomeration of all the vital tendencies which have, so to speak, been magnetically patterned around the original “spiritual nucleus’’ (the chromosome, as it were) in the course of its peregrinations through material existence. This complex soul—to give it an exact name—was called in Egypt the Ka, and its different aspects will be described later.* Each aspect of the Ka strives to assert itself, and tries to monopolize the will to its own advantage. Only by becoming conscious of the interplay of these diverse elements can one realize oneself as a complete and harmonious individual. That is the aim of human existence. It is an absolute necessity for every individual life before returning to its divine source to attain total consciousness of the matter in which it is incarnate; for that which has once departed from Unity cannot find eternal life without this resurrection, that is, without total realization.

‘And what about that which has not departed?”’ *See Appendix II.

158

THE OPENING OF THE WAY

‘There we enter upon the world of Archetypes, of which all terrestrial creatures are symbols.’’ Before being skeptical, consider this: Why is it incredible that a harmony of archetypal powers should constitute a spiritual world which with its energies interpenetrates and controls our material world, when we see in the nerve-centers of that microworld, the brain, a focus of energy

which controls all the physical and mental functions of the physical body? There is, however, this difference: that what in the one is divisible, and an effect, in the other is indivisible, and a cause.

Herein resides the mystery of the spiritual hierarchies which can exist in the heart of Unity without losing their own being. To imagine this is not merely difficult, but impossible. We can only conceive it by the communion of that in us which is of the same nature as our indestructible Origin. To our minds, which cannot understand without making comparisons, that is to say oppositions, this diversity in Unity is intolerable. Light, however, can provide us with a simile, for it is white in itself,

and only shows the seven colors when it is broken by a prism. Light is a vibration of the essential Fire, and the Fire is a manifestation of the original Word. The Word is That hice has on and That which has incarnated is, according to Plato, ‘‘the Same.’ ‘*The Same’’ is identical with ‘‘That,’’ and in spite ofits incarnations “*That’’ has never been divided. In every incarnation all the essential Numbers are incarnated in a single Fire.* They will become manifest successively in the ‘“becoming’’ of the forms, but they are virtually simultaneous. ‘“That”” takes form in the different realms of earthly life, and in each of its forms it increases the perfection of its consciousness. Here we reach at last the world of the true ‘‘Masters.’” When a man on earth has succeeded in incarnating his divine Ka and achieved total conscience, he has realized his “‘glorious body,’’ his indestructible being,

for which death is only a liberation from physical obstacles. He can then live in whatever country or ‘‘spiritual milieu’’ suits him, or remain accessible to humanity in order to help its evolution, or choose a further incarnation in order to fulfill his task of helping. Such, in their different conditions, are the ‘‘Perfect Men’’ who may be called the Masters. Nothing in this is contrary to common sense, only the fantastic imaginings which have been built up around it are misleading. For we should never forget that between the spiritual world and the physical world *The Kabalistic Kether. (Trans. note)

THE MASTERS

159

there is a gulf as impassible for our cerebral faculties as a brick wall is for our physical body. Every human thought, therefore, is fallible, unless it can restrict itself to expressing faithfully that which ‘‘identification’’ has revealed to it. And further, from the Light of the Sages, whether inspired by a Master or rediscovered in himself (for it comes to the same thing), every teacher will catch that ray which matches the ‘‘color’’ of his own soul. The light that the sun casts on the planets is the same for all, but each planet reflects it according to its own color, and the radiation that it returns is determined by its constitution. In this inevitable diversity of color there is no treachery or false transmission, but it does explain why no teacher, however great, can call himself the sole possessor of the Truth. He can only teach according to the type and ‘‘color’’ of his own soul, and to his capacity for faithful representation. Beyond this limit he would be exceeding or misdirecting his mission, and adding a heavy responsibility to his burden of karma. For his disciples, however, the temptation to high claims is all the greater because they do not know the limits of their Master’s mission and often enlarge it, through either vanity or unperceptiveness. This is a real danger, which all the illuminated must guard against by preserving a selfless and impersonal attitude. Every type of teaching naturally attracts the disciples whom it suits. No disciple should ever forget what the Master knows quite well: that Wisdom is not to be found by all men, however well disposed, along the same road and under the same aspect. This has been very loyally understood and practiced by the sages of Tibet, who sometimes direct their pupils to a different master whose teaching will be more suitable for them than their own. Disciples too should practice the same wisdom, and never, by a shameful sectarian jealousy, prevent the awakening of the Light in others.

=) 5) diese ae _

+O

ve

nr

pi

avr

eel i

4

Rar

“:

;

fe :

a

6

’

~

hd a

wa

i

PET

rat2

P

|

7

p

nna - ve rer 5

ta xf ore ds

ED ts

dti 5/06

nbtssré

ten: L

drug ”

|

»

:

eet:

-

ey ok

NRA meee

*

=

Ales

0

— Ê

‘APR

.

auper rie.

TT

hé

4 1 a

i

d En

pre

|

LA

ee

7

n

a

à

+

Wes

msen

her

es

sd

À

L

y

ail oe

7

al

pt,

Dupont:

à,

N

,

a!

FE

a!

*

rie

NE

ey “tr

-

J

mhbig

F chine. web

pu

ds phd reper

“tenella tae R

de.

.

0

N

>

1

PE

à

vecon— Do

à

bert

à

eae

ee

7

ah :

Le

8

ay

Wee ug |

pe

puis!

=

* 4

ra a Se | res gs

Ae Goes

aie | pra sre rs

wy

(mig,

-

7

7. _

ni

|

+

moi

ou

ae i sa

AND)

… |

‘

f 4

We

by ‘ in CI

& sete Dési TPS

a

CL ies

à

7

TE

UE

… ' ~

\.

ai

& a 4 la Le higpba dns od va

|

i

;

ane

‘Ta he 7

.

‘as

:

‘

'

|

A:

a’ |

APPLE De r

pe

ae

3 Got a

ress =

L

Yok: The Elite

In attempting to throw light on some of the problems which cause anxiety to modern man, one must first decide to whom to address oneself. What with professional prejudice and educational bias, there are so many differences of culture and belief, such multiplicity of opinions and such divergent lines of approach, that it seems hard to find any common language. Aside from the great mass whose interests are limited to material cares and personal ambitions, many people today are troubled by a thirst for knowledge concerning the essential problems of life, or by the fact that their deepest aspirations remain unsatisfied. Both these anxieties are the result of uncertainty; the way is uncertain because the goal is uncertain. In either case the solution would seem to lie in knowledge of the laws which condition life on earth and define its aim. The danger is that any such teaching would be taken for dogma, and have its advocates and opponents, unless of course one could provide the proof of it. But the proof can only be found by individual experience. One is tempted, therefore, to offer the answer to an elite only. But

how is the elite to be selected? An elite is always selected in relation to an aim. If your aim is the control of nations, then your elite will consist of military and economic magnates, and the directors of political policy. If the aim is to create a racial aristocracy, then the members will be chosen for their physical and intellectual prowess. If the aim is to attain the highest destiny of humanity, then the elite will be selected for the qualities required by that aim. This highest destiny has been exemplified in history by the appearance from time to time in different races and civilizations of certain

162

THE OPENING OF THE WAY

great ones who have attained the highest point of human development. Their achievement may be regarded as fabulous, or godlike, yet why did they appear to offer us the example of a suprahuman kingdom, or condition as a possible aim? We think so much of progress in the sciences, of the wonderful power of mathematical thought, of discoveries in machinery and biology, that we have lost sight of the only kind of progress which is of value for the essential aim of man, namely the proof that his existence is eternal, that his development continues even after the death of the body, and that he possessses faculties which enable him to discover spiritual reality and discern the relationship of the realities of the senses to this higher reality. His power of thought may fill the intellectual man with pride, and cloud the vision of his true destiny; but reality will take its revenge when some fortuitous development makes nonsense of the most artful deductions of professors, politicians, and psychologists. And its last revenge is taken at the moment of death, when the dying man, forced to abandon everything he has lived for, may well ask what he has profited by it all. Whether or not believing in survival, a man does feel the need for some continuation to justify his struggles and atone for his disappointments. But the belief in an afterlife—which can begin in this very existence by the attainment in some slight degree of that transcendent state which the sages have called ‘‘the realm of the suprahuman’’—this belief is often rejected only out of a false timidity. Man would sooner die in the dreary belief of having wasted one’s life, than encounter the superior smile of the skeptic! Others have been attracted by techniques for acquiring what are called magical or psychic powers, which produce abnormal phenomena in the lower levels of life or matter, abnormal physical, emotional, or mental states: but in this there is nothing of the suprahuman. The suprahuman realm is a state in which spiritual awareness predominates over psychological awareness of the lower levels, and where the universal prevails over the particular. The sages who speak of it condemn as serious obstacles the multiplicity of desires and complicated notions. They do not speak of magical powers, but of the inherent abilities of the spirit when controlling matter. And they do not speak of willpower as a means to produce phenomena, but of the absence of violence, egotism, and hatred; for without these our human and animal aggressiveness would no longer be dangerous. Each in his own language speaks of those elect beings who have acquired the qualities needed for entering on the suprahuman realm (those who have been “‘called’’) and those who have actually attained it (the elect”), Whether we study the Gospels, or Lao-tse, or the Egyptian Masters, we are told that the Kingdom of Heaven, the Tao, the Path of Maat, is to be

THE ELITE

163

found within us—which amounts to saying that the election, or selection, of the elite is decided within ourselves, according to how we shrink from or obey our higher impulses. No sage has ever regarded as particularly fortunate those famous for their knowledge or power, and even less the learned doctors of the law. Unanimously they agree in attributing membership of the elite to those who have rediscovered in the maturity of their adult human consciousness the simplicity of a child. From what has been said we could define the elite of humanity at present as consisting of those who have at least begun to become aware and critical of the present state of their consciousness, who are not satisfied with their animal humanity and aspire to something higher. The choice is thus already very limited, for even among those who are considered ‘‘cultured,’’ how few have any effective notion of the distinction between the human and the suprahuman! Many will not discover the difference until they are already upon the Path, so this we cannot use as a basis for defining the elite; and such classification will be of little interest to those who have in them already the germ of the qualities required. The definition, in fact, is only of value if we have to correct a wrong judgment of the nature of that progress which enables humanity to rise to the suprahuman state. What matters is not to apply a definition but to observe the characteristic signs of a disposition allotted by destiny or achieved by effort. Among such symptoms are the tendency to sympathize with the sufferings of others, not in the sense of pity, but by opening the heart so that its radiation, without selection or discrimination, acts by itself as a balm of impersonal healing. Other signs are material and spiritual generosity, as opposed to avarice and envy; the feeling or awareness of solidarity; an effective sense of responsibility; and the acceptance of all that makes for simplicity of thought and feeling, looking at all times for the essential point and rejecting perfunctory opinions and fashionable prejudices. Among the signs we must even include the sense of excess, so long as its motive is not greed for sensual pleasure. For on any higher level it expresses a need to escape our natural and conventional limitations, to pass beyond the precarious human state and touch, even if only for a moment, the suprahuman state. Since nature cannot tolerate excess, this tendency can only be explained as an instinctive desire to transcend the limits of nature. So if one’s motive is not any selfish interest or pleasure, then only guidance is necessary and one will attain the goal, provided one has the heroic courage which is prepared to break the bounds of security in order to reach the infinite. There can be no question, then, of defining the elite as a chosen body of

164

THE OPENING OF THE WAY

persons privileged by culture, abilities, or knowledge. It will be composed of those who are searching by every possible means to make contact with ‘*that which cannot die’’ in themselves and in the universe; of those who

feel themselves the heirs not of their earthly ancestors, but of those beings who have already reached the stage of ‘‘living incorruptible ones.”’ Yet the predisposition to this way is not always conscious in those who have it; often the only evidence of it is an indefinable hunger that no human satisfaction can assuage. But once this tendency is clearly brought to light, the thoughtful man will recognize that it answers the demand of his heart, and by becoming conscious of it he becomes a member of the elite; and this makes him immediately sensitive to the sufferings of others. For the cause of these sufferings is egocentricity, which makes a man impervious to the vitalizing Fire of the world by wrapping him in that hard shell by which men cut themselves off from one another, like cells in a condition of sclerosis. When such people attempt to acquire wisdom or mastery or powers, their efforts only increase the thickness of their shell and the inflation of their ego. They may form a terestrial elite, but they have no point of contact with the suprahuman realm, where personal ‘‘“shells’” are broken and knowledge is the fruit of communion with That Which Is. The distance between these two paths can be measured by saying that at their beginning there may be no more space between them than the thickness of a razor’s edge, but their ends are as far apart as the earth’s crust and the sun that warms it. The Kingdom of ‘“Heaven,’’ that is, of the suprahuman, is liberation from the human by expanding beyond the limits of the personality. The powers thus attained are the miracles wrought by nonresistance and impersonal love. The firmament of the Kingdom, its elite, is constituted by the ‘‘simple’’ in heart and thought.

PART FIVE

Le

sr à

.

v-

a

eo

:

=

DO

pi

:

Tee 10

7

12 -

Po

PE

PT

tied

ue

by 2ibe

US

ca

weeny

ry

eee

er

se

10: PS.

> Tot

od

st

oath

ins

oA

né we

à

Peete:

ME be

oie nef |

Fuge mi

kr

“Weg

al Much

ete of pu Qi

ep men

| Gems

tes Rite:

ok tros

Tre

nas

hifi

nt

Ne

ENCEINTES

(a

ed Ny

où th

90

ve

*

Shots D ice ie

Mids che Wigs

pue

Wer

fapesbséhet Katy ‘The NM

DE

ae

CP

iy ter

Reet emt i

at

iter, fee

4 iy ee

Meer

ARE"

ee CUP

Bare .

Sy

… Dee

thai ="

on plaine

SOINS

Sol re

ae ith

baie

TE té ee:

vp

“Que LT

Dr + router ten at Pi Ses

etat

ER

& er: Nei

brie

rene

Ses

tv

er

=

VINS fat teaie

à Mai 2

MA

7

x state. hy calle igi

pty eet

dot tiré

Ce

qu

Cie

Gé

te

airy

ny à

‘aes c'en

de ¥

eh bete taf Toy ON ahirdaeres dre,

sen Ans Mt %

ds.

sd

WH Beton Wee

oe

C4

A.

Chain

ossi Chile

apemet

ol) Ther Ana

seta?

ate oa

SF

ES

|

aie: és

à

- Uae! |

FH

7

y

a

4

¢

oa L 5

;

4

no

= ah

PV.

.

nil

{

LL.

.

b

>

b

4 +

i

.

if

L

| |

nave } Pa.

7

|

W

[LS

.

x

n

à

Sin >

|

Appendix II Psychospiritual

States

in

Different Traditions: When considering the relationship of psychic and spiritual states to organic functions, it is important to bear in mind also the general conditions on levels more subtle than the physical. The breath of life (in Egyptian, the universal Ba) is breathed in by the lungs and individualized by the blood into an animal vital force (in Egyptian, the animal Ba); this is the inferior or ‘‘sensitive’’ soul, the Hebrew nefesh. It corresponds to the Chinese pro which is the unconscious vital energy of the cells, the organs, and the sex, * * and resides in the lungs. The astral or ‘‘etheric’’ body, corresponding to the popular notion of a ghost (linga-sharira among the Hindus, and in Egyptian the Shadow, Khaibit), has its seat in the spleen. It is related to the Akasha, the world or state which holds the records of all the pictures or imaginings in our universe, and this justifies the idea of the spleen as seat of the imagination. The individual vital force, which engraves in the liver the characteristics of the personality and the paternal heredity, is the intermediate or ‘*personal’’ Ka of the Egyptians. The Chinese call it ‘‘roun’’ and situate it in the liver, and define its manifestations as “‘personal vital energy,

personal vital needs and tendencies, conscious sexual needs.’’ In actual fact this consciousness belongs to the Automatic Self, the mortal ego, and

in relation to the Ego-Consciousness it is a form of subconsciousness, so long as the latter, which also reacts in the liver, is not awakened. *See chapter 4, Soul and Consciousness. For the Psychospiritual States in Different Traditions, see also Isha Schwaller de Lubicz, Her-Bak: Egyptian Initiate. New York: 1978, Inner Traditions. **G. Soulié de Morand, Acupuncture chinoise (Paris: Mercure de France, 1939).

200

THE ORENING OF THE WAY

The mental state (Sanskrit manas) has two aspects. The brain is the organ of the one, and in its different localizations is connected with all the operations of the lower mind. The other belongs to man’s immortal consciousness and his spiritual intelligence, and has no physical organ, but uses relay stations suitable to its different modes of expression. The intuitive state (which in Hinduism begins with buddhi) has its physical relay stations in the pineal gland and in the region of the heart; it is related to the Chinese chen, translated as ‘‘consciousness’’

or ‘‘the

spiritual spark which relates man to the universe.’’ This state is located by the Chinese and Egyptians in the heart. The words ‘‘soul’’ and ‘‘spirit,’’ as used in Christian countries, are so

vague that we must now request the reader to permit the adoption of two terms from ancient Egypt, Ba and Ka—first, because the metaphysical meaning of these words is strictly defined, and second because the philosophical notions connected with them will make it possible to explain their different aspects better than in any other way. The following description is quoted from the Commentaries on Her-Bak.* There is good reason to emphasize the Egyptian form of this teaching, because the ancient texts, hieroglyphs, and pictures remaining unaltered are the witnesses of an immutable tradition.

THE SOUL IN ANCIENT EGYPT The different constituents of human nature are given different names in each religious tradition, and their number and classification may even vary between the schools of a single tradition, but this in no way impugns the reality of our knowledge of them. The occult elements of human nature are stages or modes of consciousness which do in fact exist, however they may be named or classified; and in the knowledge and experience of these several states consist the various degrees of Mastership, regardless of any differences of terminology. To study them in theory, however, does require a knowledge

of the terms to be employed. The word ‘“‘soul’’ is too vaguely inclusive, and will lead to illusions when the discrimination between different states of consciousness is not possible owing to ignorance. At the other extreme, a too subtle analysis is intellectually irritating, and that too is an obstruction in the way of self-knowledge. The principal metaphysical states of man are mentioned by the Egyptians, but are not analyzed so intricately as by the Hindus. Such analysis was unnecessary because the hieroglyphic symbols can express the different aspects of a single principle according to how they are used, in *Isha Schwaller de Lubicz, Her-Bak: Egyptian Initiate. New York: 1978. Inner Traditions.

APPENDIX II

201

groups or severally, and in such a method there is less risk of error than in studying separately constituents which cannot properly be isolated. The intricacy, however, is no less great when we consider the different occult meanings of our spiritual constituerits. It is not hard for the imagination to comprehend the two extreme conditions of the human composite, the most spiritual on the one hand, and on the other the nearest to the body, the Shade or Ghost, the ‘‘emotional body,’’ which preserves our likeness and bears the traces of our psychic life. But it is more difficult to define the intermediate factors, which have

something both of the higher and of the lower natures, such as the different aspects of the Ba and Ka, which are somtimes spoken of separately and sometimes taken together under a single name. The definitions of these two must always be relative to each other, since

they can only refer to one aspect in its relations to the other. Ba, in relation to Ka, is the animating spirit. Ka, in relation to Ba, is the individualization of consciousness in the

more or less gross or subtle states of being, and makes it possible to stabilize the animating spirit. Ba gives the breath of life; its characteristic is nonfixity, and it always needs a support. Ka is a principle of fixity, of fixation and attraction; it is the power which can attract, stabilize, and transform the vital or animating principle, Ba. The word bka, meaning the impregnation or fecundation of a female, shows how these two factors must be brought together for there to be a conception, which is an incarnation of the essential and specific Ka, given by the seed, and animated by the vital breath of the b-. “It must not be forgotten that all comes from the One, and all factors or states of being are only manifestations of the One, despite the different names which are given them to express Its different aspects. These aspects can themselves appear interchangeable, according to their mutual modes of action and reaction in all the triads of ‘‘manifestation’’ which have issued from the original trinity. Hence there may be interchange of names between different functions. Thus with Ba and Ka there is continual interchange, each playing now the active part, and now the passive. Being thus warned against interpreting them schematically, we can study the respective characters of Ba and Ka. Ba is the impersonal aspect of the soul because it is the universal aspect, but it is conditioned by its affinities with the Ka, and these are determined by the circumstances of birth. In the-account of our becoming, Ba and Ka are the second and third states or principles, manifesting the Trinity, which is first creative, then

202

THE OPENING OF THE WAY

formative, then regenerative. The first principle is not akh, as the usual terminology would lead one to suppose, but 4, which contains virtually the two aspects (activity, passivity, aa or ia) of the Original Source, the Creative Word. A&h/ is the original Power begotten in the darkness of matter and overcoming it in its quality of ‘‘Light emerging from darkness.’’ The second factor, Ba, was considered in Egypt under three aspects, as the Universal Soul, the Natural Soul, and the Human Soul, but it has in

itself a dual character. For just as in the original Trinity TWO has a dual character, in that it shares in the divine essence of the ONE from which it proceeds, but also has a particular or individual aspect because of its part in Nature, which it is going to ‘‘cause”” by its duality; so too Ba is both universal, and at the same time particularized in the human being. Yet, since its nature is spiritual, it remains indivisible; that is to say, if it ceases to be individualized, it returns to union with its source.

Ba, like Ka, has three aspects: 1. Ba is the cosmic soul, the Spirit of Fire, which gives life to the world in all its parts. Originally there is Ba, and at the end there is Ba, and between the beginning and end Ba is in everything, being the breath which creates life. Hence the spirit of Ba is in all the constituents of the world and in its final perfection. 2. Ba is the Natural Soul stabilized in the bodily form, and its character is Osirian; that is, it is subject to cyclic renewal. This aspect is symbolized by the ram with horizontal horns. 3. Ba is also represented by a bird with a human head, and this is the symbol of the human soul, which comes and goes between heaven and earth, wandering near its body until the purification of its Ka-djet, or glorious indestructible body, which it can then take on. The three aspects of Ka may be understood as follows: Originally, Ka is the Formal Element which gives form to Substance and thus creates Matter. It is the spiritual principle of fixity, which will become the basis of all manifestation, and through the ages of Becoming

will undergo innumerable modifications from the basest of forms to the perfection of the indestructible body. Ka as a cosmic power is in essence the idea of the hieroglyph of the Bull. As bearer of the generative power it provides the inherited individual quality, whether in the original creative source or in terrestrial procreators. Ka therefore is the bearer of all the powers of manifestation, the motive force of the universal functions. The Egyptians also called it the ‘‘Father of the fathers of the Neters (principles),’’ for Ka is the principle which realizes (makes real) continuous creation; without it the Father

APPENDIX II

203

would have no effective power, and by it the Son reveals the face of his Father. By it all things receive their ‘‘names.”’ The Kas of the Sun, Ra, are its active properties; the Kas of any kind of food are its vitalizing qualities. For the Ka is the source of all appetites. ‘*All the aspects of Ka are to be found in man, but not all are under his control. The higher qualities of the Ka, which feed upon the subtle fires of the marrow, only become incorporated in him when he has knowledge of and mastery over them. The animal Kas reside in the intestines, and the appetites of which they are the incarnation remain for a certain time after death. It was for these Kas that funeral food was offered. But the higher Ka of a man is superior to these animal Kas. We can now see the three aspects of the Ka: First, the original Ka, creator of all the others; then the Kas of Nature, mineral, vegetable, and animal; then the individualized Ka of man, which

includes his inherited character and his own signature, and so determines his destiny. In the human realm the Ka was also regarded by the Egyptians under three aspects: on the universal level, as the origin of man; in the King, as microcosm, type and symbol of the perfected man; and in the ordinary man, not yet perfected. We can now speak of the human Ba as of an individual soul, which, thanks to its Ka, becomes an Entity. Ba, a pure and formless spirit, must always have a support in order to manifest, and this support is the selective affinity of the thing it has to animate; and the affinity is determined and characterized by the Ka. It is the characteristics of the Ka which make the choice of circumstances for incarnation, as also of nourishment and surrounding atmosphere; for its affinity is only with things of its own specific nature, and this applies also after the death of the body, both as regards the vital elements of the tomb offerings and the surroundings. The Ka, which is the stable element in a man, is distinguished from the Kas of other men by the specific qualities of its own selective affinity. The universal Ba is in constant contact with the man whom it animates, and

with his Ka; but the Ka, by assimilating it, generates a new being, which is the individualized

soul,

which

remains

divine,

incorruptible,

and

therefore immortal, and yet is governed by the affinity which it now has for the characteristics of its Ka. This is what we call the higher Ka. The individualized Ba is thus the most spiritual element in man, for by its divine nature it is his link with the Creator. For this reason it will always be incomprehensible to the thinking faculty, whose relative nature cannot make contact with the Spirit. Thus too it is impossible to pin down

204

THE OPENING OF THE WAY

and define this Ba-soul, or enclose it in a body; for it is incommensurable and indivisible, free, unfixed, and unaffected by the vicissitudes of the human being whose only link with it is a link of consciousness.

It is hard to distinguish the different aspects of the Ka, because their difference lies not in their source or cause, but only in their effects. If the light of the sun is reflected by several mirrors made of different metals, it will take on different colors and qualities from the different mirrors. Thus, though every Ka-entity issues forth from the one source of Maat [consciousness-truth], each is characterized in the man to whom it is incarnated, by the signatures of the vital forces (the natural, organic, and instinctive Kas) which it finds in him, and by the innate consciousness of his being. Thus the Ka is his agent of consciousness, the Permanent Witness of the transformations of his being; it is the personality engraved in the liver and signed upon the skin by Seshat; it shares the emotional reactions which are felt by the heart and by the Kas of the animal body; it is fed by the Kas of foodstuffs, and enriched by the double sefer, the double current of ‘“fire’’ in the vertebral column. A man ignorant of his own spiritual world has little or no contact with his divine Ka. His personal Ka is brought down to the whole of his lower Kas; therefore he will become, after death, his own shade or ghost. But the quest for the spiritual springs of action, and the enlargement of consciousness, can modify the character of his ‘‘personal’’ Ka until the spiritual faculties are awakened and it makes contact with its divine Ka, and this proportionately diminishes the tyranny of the inferior Ka. This account of the aspects of Ba and Ka is closer to reality than all the theoretical explanations that would have had to be given to render intelligible the various aspects of what is commonly called ‘‘the soul.’’ It would be wise to think about them frequently and deeply until their reality becomes apparent. In this work the word ‘‘soul’’ has been used for the highest spiritual aspect of the Ba. The individualized soul, or Spiritual Witness, which may also be called the Witness of the Impersonal Self, has been called the ‘‘divine Ka.’’ The Permanent Witness, or Personal Consciousness, corresponds to the Intermediate Ka. The inferior Ka comprises the ‘‘psychological consciousness’’ of the Automaton (physical, emotional, and mental). The animal Kas correspond to the organic consciousness, including the essential functional consciousness, which the Egyptians called ‘‘the four sons of Horus.”’

Index

Abyss, 130

Becoming, 34

Accomplishments approprite gesture, 118-119

Being, bodies of, 19-20

Bile, 22, 57, 103-104 Blood, 22

concentration, 114-116

generosity, 124-126

transformation, 191 transmutation into energy, 192 Vital Tree of, 189-190

sense of Presence, 113-114 serenity, 116-118 silence, 119-122 thankfulness, 122-124 Action, Master of, 153 Acupuncture, meridians of, 26 Adrenal glands, 21 Akasha, mirror of, 45 Alternation, and pendulum, 95-99 Altruism, 133-134 Animal heat and energy, sources, 26-27

Bodily organs coordination of functions, 191-192 regions or areas, 192-194 sons of Horus, 194-196 vital states, 189-191

Body conscious reanimation, 39-41 orientation, 21-22

of physical being, 19-20

Appropriate gesture, 118-119 Assimilation,

Brain, 103-104 and sex, 92 Breath of life, 199

191

Astral body, 199 Astrology, 18

Cave, visits to, 85-90, 167-175 Chuang-tse, 129, 131

Atrabile, 22 Automatic Self, 18, 39 Automaton, 17, 33-37, 40 and conduct, 105, 108 constitution of, 19-22

Chyle, 20, 26 Circuits, control of, 25-26

Compassion, 132-133 Concentration, 114-115, 129 Concern, personal, 128-130 Condemnation, 12 Conduct, 105-109

and duel, 43-49

and knowledge, 66-67 and mediation, 102-103

and pendulum, 98 and Way of the Heart, 56, 57

Ba, 199, 201-204 Baboon, 195

Back, 21

_

Consciousness, 2 in man, 32-37

origins, 31 in universe, 31-32 Conscious Self, 46, 57

THE OPENING OF THE WAY

206

Contraction, and dilation, 97-98

Hate, 80-81

Creative Word, 2, 3

Head, 21-22 Heart, 20, 24-25, 27, 57 mediation of, 59-61

Depth, 40 Desire, vs. love and need, 91-94 Digestion, 191 Digestive organs, 20

and serenity, 116 Heart-kidneys-sex circuit, 25

Double power (sekhemti), 50

Heart-lungs-heart circuit, 25 Heaters, 25 Height, 40 Hermes, Emerald Tablet, 40, 64 Hippocrates, 79 Horus, 22, 27 sons of, 194-196 Humors, 22-23, 83

Duamutef, 194-195 Duel, 43-47, 55 and conduct, 106

Ida, 26, 27 Identification and discernment, 75-76

stages of, 47-49

and knowledge, 65-66

Dilation, and contraction, 97-98 Discernment, 75-76 Divine Compassion, 132, 135

Divine Ka. See Permanent Witness Divine Presence, 59 Divine Wisdom, 3-4

Elite, 161-164 vs. mass of humanity, 11 Emerald Table, 40, 64 Emotion, and sentimentality, 138-139 Energy and animal heat, sources, 26-27 transmutation of blood into, 192 Vital Tree of, 189

and personal concern, 129-130 Immobility, and silence, 120

Imset, 195

Independence, and serenity, 117 Individualization, 191

Ingratitude, 124 Intermediate Ka. See Permanent Witness Intestines, 26, 103, 196 Intuitive state, 200

Etheric body, 199 Excretion, 191

Jackal, 194-195 Joy, 181-182

Eyes, 22

and thankfulness, 122-124

Jupiter, 23

Face, 22 Fault, 12 Fire, 156

Ka, 7-8, 34, 43, 55, 150, 151, 157, 201-204

and joy, 181 of life, 27-28

Karma, and reincarnation, 143-152

Knowledge, 65-73 and appropriate gesture, 118

First cause, 2

Fountain, and gifts of Spirit, 63-64 Freedom, of individual search, 11-12 Function, and knowledge, 65 Gallbladder, 103 Generation, of substance, 192

Generosity, 124-126 Gesture, appropriate, 118-119 Gold, 50 Gratitude, 124

Great question, 13-15 Hallucinations,

Hapi, 195

120

Master of, 153 and milieu, 80

Lao-tse, 5, 6, 120 Left side, 21 Life, 183

fire Light, and Limbs,

of, 27-38 82-83, 158-159

joy, 181 21

;

Liver, 23, 26, 57, 103, 195 and sex, 92 Liver-bile-brain circuit, 25

Logos, 43

INDEX

Love vs. desire and need, 91-94 Master of, 153

vs. sentimentality, 139 Lucifer, 36 Lungs, 20, 26, 102, 195

Lymph, 22-23 Man, 195 consciousness in, 32-37 Master(s), 107-108 of Wisdom, 153-159 Masterhood, and milieu, 80 Means, and milieu, 78 Mediation of heart, 59-61 and watchfulness, 101-104 Mental state, 200

Mercury, 21 Middle way and mediation of heart, 59-61

and Way of the Heart, 56-57, 58-59 Milieu, 77-79 and tendencies, 79-83

207 Permanent Witness, 33-37, 40, 151 and conduct, 105, 108 and duel, 43-49 and knowledge, 66, 69 and mediation, 102-103 and sense of Presence, 114 and Way of the Heart, 55, 56, 57 Personal concern, 128-130 Personal Consciousness, 46, 48, 59 and conduct, 106

Personality, 129 and duel, 43-49 and ka, 151 Personal Self, 47-48 Persona] Will, 17 vs. Will to the Light, 39, 40 Pingala, 26, 27

Pity, false, 132-135 Power, of heart, 57-58 Presence, sense of, 113-114 Providence, wrong notion of, 130-132

Psychospiritual states, 199-204 Pyramid Texts, 4

Myself, and knowledge, 67-68

Qebhsenuf, 196 Quantitative mentality, 2

Nature, and Spirit, 184 Need, vs. desire and Jove, 91-94 Neter, 49 Nicodemus, 143

Question, great, 13-14 Rationalist, learned, 3 Reason faculties, and divine truth, 3-4

Red crown, 50 Reincarnation, and karma, 143-152

Remorse, 136 Right side, 21

Obstacles, 127-128

false pity, 132-135 quest for sanctity, 135-138

Routine, 140 Royal principle, 5

routine, 140 satisfaction, 139-140

Sage, and divine wisdom, 3-4

personal concern,

128-130

sentimentality, 138-139 wrong notion of Providence, 130-132 Old Testament, 64 Orientation, of body, 21-22

Original Fire, 156 Osirian Consciousness,

50

Salt, 21

Samadhi, 47 Sanctity, quest for, 135-138 Satan, 36 Satisfaction, 139-140 Selection, 191

Osiris, 49-50

Self, 46 and human triad, 33-37 Self-knowledge, 15

Pain, 132

Sentimentality, 138-139

Pardon, 12 Peace, 177-179 Pendulum, 95-99 Perfect silence, 120

Serenity, 116-118 Sexual problem, 91-94

Osirian rhythm, 36

Shame, 136 Shushumna, 26, 27

THE OPENING OF THE WAY

208

Silence, 119-122

Thankfulness,

Simplicity, 60

Thyroid gland, 21

122-124

Sin, 12

Transformation, of blood, 191

Skin, 193

Transparency, and serenity, 117

Small intestine, 103, 196

Tree of Exchange, 102 Triad, human, 33-37 Truth divine, 3-4 toward one, 4-8

Son of Man, and Son of God, 183-185 Soul, 200

in ancient Egypt, 200-204 Spine, 20-21, 26

Spirit, 130, 200 fountain and gifts of, 63-64

Universal Consciousness, 31-32, 46-47

and generosity, 125 and nature, 184

Spiritual

Consciousness.

Vital force, 199

See

Spiritual

Witness

synthesis and coordination, 23-25 Vital states, of bodily organs, 189-191

Spiritual Heart, 34, 43, 59 and conduct, 106

Watchfulness, and mediation,

101-104

Spiritual Principle, 157

Way, 39

Spiritual Self, 48, 56 Spiritual Witness, 33-37, 40 59 and conduct, 105, 106, 108 and duel, 43-49 and knowledge, 66 and sense of Presence, 114

Way of the Heart, 51, 55-56 and mediation of heart, 59-61 and middle way, 56-57 and power of heart, 57-59 White crown, 50 Willpower, vs. concentration, 115

and serenity, 116 and Way of the Heart, 55, 57 Spleen, 24, 57 Stomach, 26, 82, 103, 194-195 Substance, generation of, 192 Sulfur, 21 Suppression, 93

Suprahuman realm, keys to, 49-51

Will to the Light, 17 and pendulum, 96

vs. personal will, 39, 40 Wisdom divine, 3-4 Lao-tse on, 6

Masters of, 153-159 World of Causes, 20

Tao, 128, 131 and appropriate gesture, 119

Yoga, 60

Tendencies, and milieu, 79-83

Zacchaeus,

138

OTHER

BOOKS ON THE THOUGHT ANCIENT EGYPT FROM INNER TRADITIONS

OF

By Isha Schwaller de Lubicz: HER-BAK: The Living Face of Ancient Egypt, by Isha Schwaller de Lubicz. Illustrated by Lucie Lamy / ISBN 0-89281-003-3 / quality paperback $8.95 In this vivid re-creation of the spiritual life of ancient Egypt, the author brings to life the world of ancient Egypt as seen through the eyes of the young Her-Bak, candidate for initiation into the sublime mysteries of the Egyptian temple. HER-BAK: Egyptian Initiate, by Isha Schwaller de Lubicz. Illustrated by Lucie Lamy / ISBN 0-89281-002-5 / quality paperback $8.95 This second and independent volume presents Her-Bak’s initiation into the Inner Temple and his progressive penetration of the esoteric aspects of the Egyptian Mystery teachings.

By R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz: THE SACRED SCIENCE: The King of the Pharaonic Theocracy, by R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz. Illustrated by Lucie Lamy / ISBN 0-89281-007-6 / Cloth $12.95 The process of man’s transformation is a science held sacred by the sages of ancient Egypt and is the concern of the pharaonic text cited in these pages, in which the author contrasts the two poles of mentality represented by the ancient Egyptians’ intuitive wisdom and our modern rationalistic base of thought.

THE TEMPLE IN MAN

by R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz. Illustrated by

Lucie Lamy / ISBN 0-89281-021-1 / quality paperback $6.95 A work examining the esoteric symbolism and its significance in ancient Egypt which establishes that the Temple of Luxor and other monuments symbolically reveal the nature of man.

SYMBOL AND SYMBOLIC by R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz. Illustrated by

Lucie Lamy / ISBN 0-89281-022-X / quality paperback $5.95 An overture to Schwaller de Lubicz's masterpiece The Temple in Man describing the principles governing symbol and symbolic in the expression of a vital rather than a rational philosophy, as a most perfect means of esoteric transmission. ESOTERISM AND SYMBOL by R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz. Illustrated by

Lucie Lamy / ISBN 0-89281-014-9 / quality paperback $5.95 This work initiates the reader into the tone, structure, and mentality of

Egyptian knowledge, the basis of all Western theology and science.

THE EGYPTIAN MIRACLE by R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz. Illustrated by Lucie Lamy / ISBN 0-89281-008-4 / cloth $12.95 (forthcoming) A poetic synthesis of ancient sciences which include alchemical principles and the esoteric structure of the planetary systems. This book also contains the essential philosophic texts and initiatic teachings from Schwaller de Lubicz’s monumental three-volume work Le Temple de l'Homme.

By Bika Reed: REBEL IN THE SOUL: À Sacred Text of Ancient Egypt by Bika Reed. Illustrated / ISBN 0-89281-004-1 / quality paperback $9.95 The first complete and coherent translation of the Berlin Papyrus 3024, thought to be nearly 4,000 years old, meant

for the initiates at the

threshold of the Inner Temple, treats the rebellion and despair of the

intellect at a crucial stage of spiritual evolution. In the form of a dialogue between a man and his soul, this papyrus explores the inner dialogue between doubt and mystical knowledge.

THE FIELDS OF TRANSFORMATION by Bika Reed. Illustrated/ ISBN 0-89281-016-5 / quality paperback $8.95 (forthcoming) Based:on the translation of a sacred ancient Egyptian scripture, this book contains a conclusive understanding of the evolution of man and the nucleus of a philosophy of life based on this wisdom.

oa

%

ñ PPS

so Li débit Ly RL:# fi vt14404 LE al eatjapan N

4

d

=

né

EURE

ÉTNES

sui) den

mine

Pe

pena ve Lio

à pela ude # À coun à a ragpfiponven

fem

@

"hab

L

> DURE

2 red

ci IAE

Fe

pas

+ ka

wen ide EU. sovinels & F< Lo

Pure, tanelct

wih by ergesb bre rolleyes dd: D

PORTES

am kis die HabaGEbiere aT A elt ok

PL.

a’

AL

i

>

oy

£

v

i

dd :

Tih?

(A atiot BJ

Ye

7

\ Consett est will of WOST RSA

pce

Me L ily

ere bem,

wi

as»

Wat

>;

ar

Le. yy Tk

CET

cnF4

STE

Pore

ei avr:

[EE

de

t al a

«r DE er

7

Le ”r f‘ o “pn

x wh,

oa

ee à i.

8x re

“an secreRb!Vonchegeidtttleniges vel a Rie Cons > lu sertie Me net | Hie enc var cells pit wire cal: iris ienæit: oeCRT Oe (heme of

pty! a

Di 0

:

f

re

Ke

to

hyper

BRE

A

Seb

FE 4

tar

er

bd

§

édite

hé feglad

rary

COST

SU

: >> ra

ph doit

gui

anyone eel seme

ee bees

Abeer

aya, way

pupa ed

sehen

wi

rosneir,

patie

(ile Aen gal.

à

Ne

eg

ane

ER OIL

at

ne ee

wai;

eh ASTON, NET rot ee

PS, deta

PeekA

oe

sos BE

.ebabeons

its Ww ovat wy

wesw

(yee

lis

an

net

é

NS

sh

Pa

7 ee eth. fey tri

hs 84 Hal

DETTE ee 30 Minar

0) wit

Pads # as

Te

zx tt LOUE

'

10)

FE

CI

ia

ke:

74

Fa

0. :

) do

| Pique justes wee

binant ih qu sere oe a e Lori Ve 4x hai GosWeer baie

LT

No a

yee ay eplinwit Re

om chet xt wide at

Er à

vite À ews

Ra

La

| X ED

Der

pid rsa)

ARIE

A RP

al AR à

ae

te 4 à

: | Ércaen 1 pure mt

=>

70

74

pes

' ft124 i AF OPEN a> pant

Mise podem

a

pu lue en

Mr

ue

FAT

;

beh,

er bat

5

Pe

7

on

-

we 7

,

*

=

ad

f-

x

ve

AT L

a

:

i.

7

=

—

v»

+

>

à

, Px o

a 1

:

.

=

À

vs Àa…

ah =

>

LA

> =

x

FA dre or.

5à

+

à! a >

\

Ty

{

\

à

ve ü

Le

1

3,

=

_

a.

AE lu

ith

e

EE

PI

A? 4

7

_

pan

oe

$8.95

THE OPENING OF THE WAY The Opening of the Way, which is solidly based on the spiritual realities that were the functional pillars of the wisdom of ancient Egypt, as well as the basis of the Western spiritual tradition, is meant to help the reader gain access to the dynamic unity that produced the greatest of all known civilizations, at the same time explicating the many mysteries approached in Her-Bak: Egyptian Initiate. \n the Her-Bak books, Isha Schwaller de Lubicz transmitted in a fictional context the atmosphere and teachings of ancient Egypt based on her extensive research and collaboration with her husband, R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz. For the author, modern man is the product of several centuries of cerebral culture.

This state of mind professes to explain man and the universe by reason only, without supposing there to be any creative cause. Man cannot admit the existence of any natural laws or forces other than those which his reasoning faculty can analyze. Research into human nature has therefore taken a biological, chemical, and mechanical direction

and has come up with no constructive answers to the question of how life ought to be lived. The nervous imbalance brought about by this analytical mentality cannot tolerate silence or inactivity, without which one cannot have true intuition or spiritual experience. Isha Schwaller de Lubicz postulates that the understanding of the harmonious relationship of all parts of our universe is to be reached not by intellectual search, but only by the path of silence and true meditation. With The Opening of the Way as a guide, the reader can learn how to awaken what the ancient Egyptians called “the intelligence of the heart,” the master of harmony in our body as well as our connection to the heart of the world. The author defines such terms as “soul,” ““consciousness,” and “self-knowledge” and helps us recognize in ourselves the states of subtle energy which are immortal elements and therefore enable us to rise above the “animal man.” She also presents a study of the human body, showing the relation of the various organs to the bloodstream and to the sources of vital energy. The object here is to present a simple but comprehensive view of the unity of the human constitution and the interplay of its vital functions. With this knowledge, we become aware of the harmony that governs them and relates them to the corresponding functions of the universe. Man is an individual manifestation yy

66

of all the functions, powers, and affinities in the universe, and his consciousness is the

measure of his individualization, his power to make actual that which is still only virtual in cosmic harmony. The Opening of the Way develops for the reader the knowledge of these various elements of genesis and the spiritual bond uniting them. Cover Illustration by Lucie Lamy: The jackal Upuat, the “opener of ways,” transcribed from a bas-relief at Karnak, Temple of Amun, eighteenth dynasty, C. 1420 B.C.

INNER TRADITIONS INTERNATIONAL 377 PARK AVENUESOUTH = NEWYORK, NEW YORK 10016 Cover design by Norman Kanter

ISBN 0-89281-015-7